Braiding out of Binaries: What Arab American Women’s Literature can Teach in Introductory Literature Courses
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 4 In one of my Introduction to Literature classes last week, we were looking closely at Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House. I typically teach this play when we are beginning to look at the genre of drama because I feel that it is highly accessible to students who have not read a lot of drama. We then work onto more challenging pieces of drama, but what I am always interested in when we come together as a class for discussion is what the students’ initial reactions or feelings were about the end of the play. For those unfamiliar with this play, check out the sparknotes to A Doll House, which does a nice job of summarizing the plot. At the end of the play, Nora, the protagonist, leaves her three children and husband behind in order to find out who she is. This particular Intro to Lit course does not have any male students, and as a group of women looking at a text concerned with issues of feminine autonomy, I was excited to hear what they had to say about Nora leaving her family. Of all my female students, only one felt that she had done the right thing, and the remainder of the class was upset and downright appalled at Nora’s decision to leave. All of the ladies (save one) said Nora should have stayed because it was against her motherly duty. In other words, to borrow from Halberstam, my students believed, almost collectively, that Nora was in a state of “gender failure” by the end of the play. Now, I had not yet read The Queer Art of Failure when our class met last Thursday, but had I read this text, I would certainly have shared with my students some of what Halberstam has to offer regarding “gender failure” and how an alternative approach to reading the negatives (losing, failing, unknowing, etc.) within literature can be achieved. As an English adjunct instructor for three years now, the object I find myself writing mostly about is how my responsibility as a teacher/scholar is to expose my fellow classroom learners to texts that can challenge their own archives of thought specifically on issues of race and gender.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 At a recent conference, I presented a paper on teaching Arab-American women’s short story writing. The goal of this paper was to share my concerns with other scholars who feel a void of Arab American female writers within the literary archive. Looking at Halberstam’s “Introduction” to The Queer Art of Failure, she says something that is of the utmost importance to modern literary scholarship, which is that her book employs “low theory […] and popular knowledge to explore alternatives and to look for a way out of the usual traps and impasses of binary formulations” (2). In thinking about what “low theory” actually is, Arab American women’s literature definitely fits into this model Halberstam is proposing concerning low theory because this form of literature involves “eccentric texts and examples that refuse to confirm the hierarchies of knowing that maintain the high in high theory” (2). A really wonderful example I always like to use in my classroom of attempting to reach that goal of resisting the binaries comes from Jo Kadi’s introduction to the anthology, Food for our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists where she offers an important attempt at a solution for Arab American feminists who want to get out of this maze of belonging and silencing. Kadi evokes the memory of her grandmother braiding her hair as a child, endeavoring to help these women find balance:
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 I know it is possible and I believe it is necessary to create maps that are alive, many-layered, multi-dimensional, open-ended, and braided. Take three strands—one that is Gram, one that is me, one that is the force of history—twist, turn, and curve; do not pull so tightly that it hurts; do not weave so loosely that strands escape. It is difficult finding that balance. (Kadi 14).
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 1 This image of a braid or the act of braiding seems to be an extremely unique way of assisting Arab American women writers to write out of the binaries they have found themselves in. The image of braiding can also be used as a tool for students to investigate ways in which their interpretations can move away from the binaries. In the case of Arab American women’s writing, we look at ways of avoiding binaries of the East vs. West, assimilation into culture vs. denial of culture, Arab American domineering men vs. Arab American exoticized/subjugated women, etc. To accomplish this task, I write about and practice close reading with my students.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 One of the most interesting definitions I recently uncovered for close reading comes from Elizabeth Freeman where she says, “To close read is to linger, to dally, to take pleasure in tarrying, and to hold out that these activities can allow us to look both hard and askance at the norm […] close reading is a way into history, not a way out of it” (xvii). This explanation blends well with the historical situation of Arab American feminism I attempt to expose my students to within the short fiction of Arab American women writers. I think it is important to name a few of these short stories I have started teaching in my introductory literature courses: “Oh, Lebanon,” by Evelyn Shakir and “The Cat” by Layla Ba’labakki, both stories which question the binaries not only of cultural identity and belonging, but also the binary of parent/child, which speaks to any type of student who enters the classroom. My students respond very differently to these two Arab American texts than they do to canonical works like “The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll House primarily because the content of these stories tend to reflect on popular knowledge that we have regarding parent/child relationships, male/female relationships, and identity questions. We are able to place ourselves within the space of the text, whether we are Arab American or not, whereas there seems to be a large gap between being able to come to terms with what Nora does at the end of A Doll House and how that affects us personally, as close reading and feeling human individuals. This fissure is what ultimately gets in the way of students’ abilities to try and interpret out of the binary.
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 2 So why do I still teach A Doll House and not focus solely on the Arab American women’s literature I see as worthy of classroom discussion, debate, and interpretation? The answer is complex, but it reflects a type of respect I have for the actual literary canon that makes up anthologies. Had I myself not been exposed to A Doll House or “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a student, I would not have been able to find my own way to the Arab American literary tradition. My hopes in merging both canonical and non-canonical archives in the classroom is an attempt at doing what Halberstam expresses as “a basic desire to live life otherwise” (2) and to call my students to this action as well. As instructors, we need to reach our students on a different level and not be afraid to try inventive ways of learning that are not typically integrated within the context of an English course. Can Shakespeare teach us all a thing or two about the nature of humanity? Certainly, but we must remember that not all of our students are English majors like we were at their ages. The majority of students in my classrooms want to be nurses, physicians, technologists, and business women and men, but that does not devalue what we have in our powers to teach them.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 1 The end product created by the study of the humanities is supposed to be a force that leads to respect and equality of others; it does not propagate a cyborg of capital. The humanities discipline is a fragile field and as an active participant, I no longer want its name devalued because it does not breed more revenue. Toward the very end of his life, Socrates speaks one of my favorite lines: “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato Last Days 38a). As educators, we can extend that adage by inserting the idea that by not examining the cultural moment of our discipline and course content, we will only be adding to this crisis instead of attempting to remedy it. Teaching introductory literature courses has made me aware that a change definitely needs to be made to keep students tuned into study in the humanities, particularly in English. Maybe I cannot be “all things” to all students, but I can certainly give my all in affecting some.
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 Works Cited
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 Freeman, Elizabeth. Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010.
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2011.
¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 Kadi, Joanna. Food for our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists. Cambridge, MA: South End, 1999. Print.
¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 Plato. The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo. New York: Penguin, 1993. Print.
¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0
As far as my reading of Arab American women writers is concerned, I noticed that most of their writings focuses primarily on two major themes: 1- Postcolonialism 2- Feminism. This is represented, for example, in the writings of Diana Abu Jaber. I have always critiqued this tendency. This excessive concern on these two topics makes the west involved in the conspiracy theory.
This is a bit of an incendiary comment, Kamal! You have often made comments in class that highlight postcolonial and feminist perspectives. It sounds to me as if this comment is stating that Arab American women ought not to speak from these perspectives that you are studying––but I think I might be misunderstanding you.