Resistance of Arab-American. Mohja Kahf's poems "E-mails from Scheherazade" as a case study
Adil Ouatat
Essay from the year 2023 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, , language: English, abstract: This paper examines how the contemporary Arab-American poet Mohja Kahf challenges the western and patriarchal interpretations of some Islamic cultural symbols like "Hijab" (the veil). In poems like "Descent in JFK", "Hijab Scene # 7", and "Thawrah Des Odalisques at the Matisse Retrospective", Mohja Kahf offers an interesting counterpoint to challenge hegemonic narratives about Arab-American women rooted in the nineteenth century Orientalist discourse, and foregrounds the paradoxical experience of what it means to be a veiled Arab-American Muslim woman in a non-Muslim country. While this paper focuses on Kahf's use of poetry as a form of resistance, it also rethinks the contemporary history of Arab-American women's stereotypic repertoire.
