English Seminar to Present Series of Films on Arab Women

Beginning Feb. 17, Assistant Professor Diya Abdo’s English senior seminar class will present a series of films concerning the lives of Arab women. Students in the seminar, “Arab Women Writers,” will introduce each film and moderate a discussion afterwards.  The film screenings are free and open to the entire campus community.

Hollywood Harems–Tuesday, Feb. 17, 6:30-8 p.m., Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium

(1999, 24 minutes. A film by Tania Kamal-Eldin)

“This documentary takes aim at Hollywood’s fascination with all things east, juxtaposing film clips from the 1920s-80s to explore the portrayal of gender, race and sexuality in Hollywood's portrayal of the exotic east an indiscriminate fusion of things Arab, Persian, Chinese and Indian. Kamal-Eldin argues, convincingly, that in abridging cultural plurality and difference, these Technicolor fantasies have worked both to shape and reinforce often derogative assumptions about peoples of the east while at the same time re-inscribing the moral, spiritual and cultural supremacy of the Anglo-European west.” -- Valerie Hartouni, director, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California at San Diego

Covered: The Hejab in Cairo, Egypt–Wednesday, March 4, 6:30-8 p.m., Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium

(1995, 25 minutes. A film by Tania Kamal-Eldin)

Just over a decade ago it was hard to find women on the streets of Cairo who veiled, a custom that their forebears struggled to overthrow at the beginning of the 20th Century. But today, many Muslim women in Egypt wear a head scarf called the hejab, and in more extreme cases they cover their entire faces. This absorbing documentary offers a rare opportunity to examine the restoration of veiling and the reasons for its pervasiveness through the eyes of Egyptian women.

Algeria: Women at War–Wednesday, March 18, 6:30-8 p.m., Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorim

(1992, 52 minutes. A film produced by Parminder Vir)

This film offers a rare insight into the key role Algerian women played in their country’s liberation struggle from the French 30 years ago and their equally important place in today’s politics. Produced for Channel Four Television, this high-quality documentary uses a combination of interviews and archival footage to ponder the position of women in Algeria in the light of 30 years of single party rule, the rise of Islam and increasing political violence, raising critical questions about the balancing act between women’s and national liberation struggles.

The Veiled Hope: Women of Palestine–Wednesday, April 1, 6:30-8 p.m., Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium

(1994, 55 minutes. A film by Norma Marcos)

The Veiled Hope explores the personal and political challenges facing Palestinian women through a series of wonderful portraits of women living on the Gaza and West Bank. The women explain how in their daily lives they are working to rebuild Palestinian cultural identity and provide a rare insight into the complex feelings women have surrounding the emergence of political Islamic movements.

Family Ties–Tuesday, April 14, 6:30-8 p.m., Leak Room

(1982, 52 minutes. A film by Colin Luke)

Most Arab women’s lives still centre on the family, their traditional responsibilities to their own children and the power of parents and relatives to dictate their role in life. Writer and journalist Nadia Hijab weaves this film around a large extended family of Jordanians living in Amman. As she talks to Arab women and their families and to women active in medicine, politics, literature and the law, Nadia Hijab asks “How can we Arabs preserve the strengths of our family life and still give women a chance to lead their own lives?”

For more information about the series, contact Abdo at 316-2214 or abdod@guilford.edu.

Feb. 11, 2009