The Gendered Arab

vicky panossian Announcement
Subject Fields
Women's & Gender History / Studies, Sociology, Sexuality Studies, Middle East History / Studies, Arabic History / Studies

The Arab notion of identity, defined by traditional gender roles, categorizes the binary subsets of the patriarchal understanding of performative “male” and “female” facades. Gender remains vaguely defined in the Arab world due to layers of taboo and stigma; untraditional gender roles and practices result in a halt of the fragile cyclical reality within the Arab realm. In recent years, the academic world began to decode expressions of gender within the Arab world, however the gendered Arab identity has been fundamentally stereotyped. In this edited volume, we venture into various subsets of the 21st century Arab identity that pertain to deciphering the gendered Arab.

 

Our volume welcomes submissions that examine, question, and/or critique the following topics, including but not limited to:

 

  • The criteria of cisheteronormative masculinity in the Arab world: the performative aspects the identity of the Arab man is built upon.

  • The unparalleled perceptions of the Arabian male figure in comparison to the traditional Non-Arab patriarchal archetype.

  • Conceptualizing the role of the domesticated Arab mother in terms of comparative individuality with the Western notion of motherness.

  • Women’s social and physical confinement by their spouses’ honor and dignity (شرف/عرض عائلة الزوج ).

  • Depicting the queer Arab subject by stripping it from its “Western” essence.

  • Fetishizing the Arab queer persona.

  • Characterizing the Arab spinster.

  • Comparatively defining the social parameters of widowed Arab men and women, in regard to re-marrying and familial reputation.

To accommodate more contributors, this volume will only accept chapters that should be no more than 5,000–6,000 words, including references. To format your chapters, please follow the Chicago author-date referencing style.

To be considered for publication in this edited volume, please submit your 300–500 word abstracts by November 30, 2020. For submissions and queries please contact editors Salma Yassine (salma.yassine@lau.edu) and Vicky Panossian (vicky.panossian@lau.edu).