When:
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 4:30 PM
-
6:00 PM
Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
Middle Eastern Studies Program
present
The Radical Potential of Mothering During the Egyptian Revolution
A Talk by Nadine Naber, Professor,
Department of Gender and Women's Studies and the Global Asian Studies Program,
University of
Illinois at Chicago
This
talk is based upon ethnographic research with leftist women activists who
participated in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 while mothering young children.
It seeks to “unsentimentalize mothering” by exploring its radical potentials
within the context of revolution. I argue that mothering, among my
interlocutors, is constituted by a radical potential precisely because—contrary
to what mainstream narratives and widely accepted feminist accounts would
suggest—they do not experience mothering and revolution as conflictual.
Instead, their mothering is a practice of resistance to state violence rather
than a sentimentalized identity confined to domestic space that supports the
nation.
Dr.
Nadine Naber is an award winning author, public speaker and activist on the
topics of racial justice; gender justice; women of color feminisms; Arab and
Muslim feminisms; Arab Americans; and Muslim Americans. She has
authored/co-edited five books: Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics, and
Activism; Race and Arab Americans; Arab and Arab American Feminisms, winner of
the Arab American Book Award 2012 (Syracuse University Press, 2010); The Color
of Violence (Duke University Press, 2016); and Towards the Sun (Tadween
Publishing/George Mason University, 2018). Dr. Naber began is a
scholar-activist and has served on boards such as the Women of Color
Resource Center (WCRC); INCITE! (a network of feminists of color organizing to
end state violence and violence in our homes and communities); the Institute
for Research on Race and Public Policy and the Social Justice Initiative at
UIC. As a Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2003-2013), Dr.
Naber co-founded the academic program, Arab and Muslim American Studies. In
2013, she moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Professor of
Gender and Women's Studies and Global Asian Studies. At UIC, she is the faculty
founder of the first center on a college campus serving the needs of Arab
American students in the United States--The Arab American Cultural
Center. Dr. Naber has been an expert author for the United Nations, has
been a TEDX speaker on the topic of Arab Feminism, and is a distinguished
speaker for associations such as the American Studies Association.
Sponsored by Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Middle Eastern Studies Program, Department of English, Humanities Center, International Relations Program, Department of Women's & Gender Studies, and Department of Political Science.
Contact Havva Karakas-Keles for more information: hkarakas@syr.edu