During the last lecture,
Professor Kifah Hanna from Trinity College spoke to the class on literature in
the Middle East. I have always been very fascinated with Middle Eastern
and Islamic culture, so I particularly enjoyed this lecture as well as the Tunisian
film lecture. Hanna focuses mostly on literature in the east
Mediterranean area such as Syria and Lebanon- predominately Arabic countries.
The main topics that Hanna focuses on in Levantine literature are the
victimization of homosexuality and women.
The first poet that Hanna
discusses is Abu Nuwas. Nuwas focuses mainly on the love of wine and the
love of boys in his poems. His poetry mostly has a hedonistic feel in
them. During the time that Abu Nuwas was writing, there was a major
underground movement in his Arabic culture. The underground movement
consisted of men speaking more freely of their sexual desires for men and boys.
Because Islamic culture is very strict, and emphasizes that this is wrong
and that men should be masculine and dominant, people could not discuss this in
open forums-only amongst themselves. Nuwas wrote very explicitly and
graphically of his lustful fantasies, which ultimately were written for common
people. This is important because this shows sexual desires can be somewhat
more freely expressed by the common folk because this allowed common people to
gain information on such topics that they could not learn elsewhere like the
rich. While Nuwas openly expressed his homosexual desires, he still
always maintained that the act was wrong. Rather than supporting the
underground movement, he more so explained it to be a brief occurrence
happening among Arabic men that will stop eventually (even though it really
doesn't). Essentially Abu Nuwas was the catalyst for questioning
sexuality and gender roles in the Arabic community. This time period can
be described as redefining morality and questioning ethics that are different
from western Europeans.
The second author that
Professor Hanna touched upon briefly is Layla Ba'Albaki. Layla Ba'Albaki
was a famous poet in Lebanon, and she is known for leading the sexual
revolution for women. Traditionally in Arabic culture women are
victimized because they have to repress many types of freedoms especially their
sexual freedoms. For example, many Arabic women must wear a veil over
their head, so that they are not seen as sexy or seductive. Ba'Albaki
wrote many books throughout the 1950's and 1960's; however, most of them were
banned. Ba’Albaki’s books were very
progressive and feminist for strict Arabic culture. She often wrote about her female characters
not wanting to have children, and desiring a naked man’s body. Both these things are very outlandish for
Arabic women to traditionally talk about since they should be conservative. Therefore, she was taken to court, and her
books were banned for being deemed inappropriate.
The
third author that Professor Hanna discussed is Huda Barakat. Barakat is very reputable author in the Middle
East and in her books, she often writes about male homosexuality. Barakat is noted for not only giving
recognition to male homosexuality, but also for remaining genderless when she
writes to give an unbiased perspective. One
quote from Barakat is “We are both male and female and yet at the same time
well beyond either.” This quote is
important for two reasons. For one, it
shows how Barakat is able to separate herself in her writing to write freely of
male homosexuality, which made her writing more popular. Also, this shows how the sexual revolution
that was taking place in the Middle East was because more people were starting
to understand that gender and sexuality are just restricted labels. Peoples’ desires go far beyond just being
male or female or heterosexual. Barakat,
among other authors during this time period, ultimately tried to deconstruct
and then reconstruct the peoples’ definition of sexuality.
Just
as a personal thought from the discussion in lecture- the topic of belly dancers
peaked my interest. Professor Hanna
stated that belly dancers are looked down upon with a stigma in Arabic culture
and most often times are not even Arabic women, but rather are foreigners. Coming from a feminist and American point of
view, as well as having watched the Tunisian film in a previous lecture, I
still firmly believe that women have more sexual freedom because Arabic men are
so easily swayed by sexuality from Arabic women. Therefore, Arabic women ultimately have the
power, which is why I feel like belly dancing should not be stigmatized in
their culture. But even if belly dancing
is not the best profession to have, my other thought is: Why would Arabic
people allow their culture and traditions to be practiced by foreigners. Whether people like belly dancing or not, it
is a major part of their culture and is a beautiful art form. I personally think that they would want to
preserve that amongst the Arabic culture and have only Arabic women belly dance
as tradition. Overall, I enjoyed this
lecture, and it was very refreshing to discuss another very different culture
from American culture!
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