Palestinian Women's Life-Writing: Colonialism, Patriarchy and Beyond

Professor Bart Moore- Gilbert, Professor of Postcolonial Studies and English, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths College, University of London

This paper will discuss five Palestinian women life-writers - Leila Khaled, Fadwa Tuqan, Hanan Ashrawi, Ghada Karmi and Suad Amiry - in the light of their representations of a variety of colonial histories. It will further address their varying responses to the gender politics of nationalist mobilisations against successive phases of colonialism. Finally it will discuss the differences of Palestinian women's life-writing from its 'mainstream' equivalents at the level of form.

Biography

Bart Moore-Gilbert is Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. The author of a number of monographs on colonial and postcolonial cultures, he is currently assembling a book on 'Palestine and Postcolonialism.'

Organiser: Bloomsbury Gender Network hosted by the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies

Contact email: rs94@soas.ac.uk