An international research network exploring the representation of Muslim identities in contemporary cultural discourses.

Seminar Nadje Al-Ali and Sohail Daulatzai

Last Updated on Friday, 30 April 2010 15:56

Nadje Al-Ali presented a collection of photographic portraits of women since 1948 to the present day, documenting the changing multiple roles women have played in Iraqi life, which she argues are central to fate of the nation. Her talk was counterpointed by Sohail Daulatzai whose paper set the Afro American Muslim experience in a historical context derived from and critical of American colonialism, a debate he argues that has reached a complex nexus in the inauguration of Barak Obama. Podcasts and photos to be posted Friday 13th March.

This event was held in Soas, Thursday, 5 March 2009

 

Nadje Al-Ali, Representing Iraqi Women: moving beyond media stereotypes

Abstract
Iraqi women have been widely portrayed either as victims or heroines of the new Iraq. They have also been used to symbolize successful transition to democracy and reconstruction but also the failure of the occupation. In this talk, I will try to move beyond these simplistic dichotomies and discuss the nuances and complexities of Iraqi women's roles and lives. The talk is based on the recently published co-authored book What kind of LIberation? Women and the Occpation in Iraq (with Nicola Pratt, University of California Press).

Biography

Nadje Al-Ali is Reader in Gender Studies and Chair of the Centre for Gender Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Her research interests include gender theory; feminist activism; women and gender in the Middle East; transnational migration and diaspora moblization; war, conflict and reconstruction. Her publications include Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present (2007, Zed Books); New Approaches to Migration (ed. Routledge, 2002); Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press 2000) and Gender Writing – Writing Gender (The American University in Cairo Press, 1994).

Sohail Daulatzai, Stepping Razor: Black Internationalism, Empire, and the Specter of the Muslim in the Age of Obama

Abstract

This talk will explore the historical and contemporary relationships between Black internationalism, the American nation-state, and Muslim diasporas - in particular the links between African American liberation struggles and broader Third World internationalism in the post-World War II era.  In doing so, this talk will contextualize the current discourse around Muslims and the American national project, specifically around the Obama presidency, the possible emergence of an imperial Blackness, and the ways in which the figure of the Muslim has traced the ideological contours of the American nation-state in the post-Cold War era.

 

 

 

Biography
Sohail Daulatzai is Assistant Professor in African American Studies and Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine.  His research interests include U.S.-Muslim relations, hip-hop culture, the prison industrial complex, American foreign policy, and cultural politics.  His current book projects include Born To Use Mics (with Michael Eric Dyson), and Return of the Mecca, which explores the interconnected histories of Muslim diasporas and Black radicalism through social movements, jazz, sports, cinema, literature and hip-hop culture. He is also working on a project on the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers and is an executive producer of the forthcoming hip-hop album entitled Free Rap.

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