Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2020-11-26

Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration was recorded on the 17th of November with speaker Hawraa Al-Hassan. Find out more at: http://bit.ly/3fEUfnG

Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba‘thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration, 1968-2003 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) traces the turbulent history of Ba'thist discourses on women and state patronage of the novel, and explores various literary responses from a wide spectrum of Iraqi women writers. It attempts to show the correlation between 'progressive' discourses on women and the rise of a nationalist novel, both of which were used as markers of culture and progress by the State. It also argues for the inclusion of a broader range of texts in literary analyses, and offers the novels of Saddam Hussein and the didactic religious romances of Shia authors as examples of 'transtextuality' that help us better understand the cultural landscape of Iraq even after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.