Review of Arab and Arab American Feminisms.

• Date: 22 December 2010
• Author: Shomali, Mejdulene B.
• Published date: 22 December 2010
• Author: Shomali, Mejdulene B.

Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany, and Nadine Naber (eds.), Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011.

ARAB AND ARAB AMERICAN FEMINISMS EMERGES AT A CRUCIAL HISTORICAL MOMENT for Arab populations across homelands and diasporas; the popularly dubbed "Arab Spring," a shorthand moniker for the revolutions that have been sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, provides a fitting metaphor for the anthology. Both are transnational efforts, both refuse to decentralize the powerful and diverse voices of Arab peoples, both acknowledge the violence of oppression and liberation, and both look forward with a cautious but determined hope. The anthology is remarkable for its depth and scope, with 32 pieces organized in five sections: Living with/in Empire, Defying Categories, Activist Communities, On Our Own Terms, and Home and Homelands. The themes of gender, violence, and belonging appear across all sections, while others emerge organically, including reexaminations of Orientalism (in Nadine Naber's "Decolonizing Culture"), as well as critical discussions of culture (in Kyla Wazana Tompkins' "History's Traces") and coalition and movement building (in Therese Saliba's "On Rachel Corrie, Palestine, and Feminist Solidarity")...