Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

Authors of autobiographies are always engaged in creating a "self" to present to their readers. This process of self-creation raises a number of intriguing questions: why and how does anyone choose to present herself or himself in an autobiography? Do women and men represent themselves in different ways and, if so, why? How do differences in culture affect the writing of autobiography in various parts of the world?

This book tackles these questions through a close examination of Arab women's autobiographical writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley applies a variety of western critical theories, including Marxism, colonial discourse, feminism, and narrative theory, to the autobiographies of Huda Shaarawi, Fadwa Tuqan, Nawal el-Saadawi, and others to demonstrate what these critical methodologies can reveal about Arab women's writing. At the same time, she also interrogates these theories against the chosen texts to see how adequate or appropriate these models are for analyzing texts from other cultures. This two-fold investigation sheds important new light on how the writers or editors of Arab women's autobiographies have written, documented, presented, and organized their texts.

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Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

Authors of autobiographies are always engaged in creating a "self" to present to their readers. This process of self-creation raises a number of intriguing questions: why and how does anyone choose to present herself or himself in an autobiography? Do women and men represent themselves in different ways and, if so, why? How do differences in culture affect the writing of autobiography in various parts of the world?

This book tackles these questions through a close examination of Arab women's autobiographical writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley applies a variety of western critical theories, including Marxism, colonial discourse, feminism, and narrative theory, to the autobiographies of Huda Shaarawi, Fadwa Tuqan, Nawal el-Saadawi, and others to demonstrate what these critical methodologies can reveal about Arab women's writing. At the same time, she also interrogates these theories against the chosen texts to see how adequate or appropriate these models are for analyzing texts from other cultures. This two-fold investigation sheds important new light on how the writers or editors of Arab women's autobiographies have written, documented, presented, and organized their texts.

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Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

by Nawar Al-Hassan Golley
Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

by Nawar Al-Hassan Golley

eBook

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Overview

Authors of autobiographies are always engaged in creating a "self" to present to their readers. This process of self-creation raises a number of intriguing questions: why and how does anyone choose to present herself or himself in an autobiography? Do women and men represent themselves in different ways and, if so, why? How do differences in culture affect the writing of autobiography in various parts of the world?

This book tackles these questions through a close examination of Arab women's autobiographical writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley applies a variety of western critical theories, including Marxism, colonial discourse, feminism, and narrative theory, to the autobiographies of Huda Shaarawi, Fadwa Tuqan, Nawal el-Saadawi, and others to demonstrate what these critical methodologies can reveal about Arab women's writing. At the same time, she also interrogates these theories against the chosen texts to see how adequate or appropriate these models are for analyzing texts from other cultures. This two-fold investigation sheds important new light on how the writers or editors of Arab women's autobiographies have written, documented, presented, and organized their texts.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780292784413
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication date: 01/01/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 254
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Nawar Al-Hassan Golley is Assistant Professor of English at the American University of Sharjah in United Arab Emirates.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Part One. Political Theory: Colonial Discourse, Feminist Theory, and Arab Feminism
    • Chapter One. Why Colonial Discourse?
    • Chapter Two. Feminism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in the Arab World
    • Chapter Three. Huda Shaarawi's Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist
  • Part Two. Narrative Theory: Autobiography
    • Chapter Four. Autobiography and Sexual Difference
    • Chapter Five. Arab Autobiography: A Historical Survey
  • Part Three. Analysis of Texts
    • Chapter Six. Anthologies
    • Chapter Seven. Fadwa Tuqan's Mountainous journey, Difficult journey
    • Chapter Eight. Nawal el-Saadawi
  • Conclusion. The Literary and the Political
  • Appendix
  • Translation of the Introduction to the Arabic Edition of Memoirs from the Women's Prison by Nawal el-Saadawi
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

What People are Saying About This

Asma Barlas

This book is theoretically well-grounded, wide-ranging in its coverage of texts and theories, and eminently readable. Al-Hassan writes with verve and . . . without relying on jargon, a refreshing change in a book dealing with texts and textualities.

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