Tuesday we will be discussing the question of gender as it relates to the writing of Arab-American women.

If women face special challenges as authors, those challenges are compounded for Arab-American women authors. The three authors we will be discussing Tuesday--Suheir Hammad, Randa Jarrar and Mohja Kahf--all address the expectations and prejudices about "Oriental" women: the femme fatale (Medea, Cleopatra) and the Odalisque or harem girl.

Beginning with the Mohja Kahf's poems from the collection E-mails from Scheherezad, I would like you to comment on Kahf's strategies for dismantling and replacing these stereotypes of Oriental women in the Hijab scenes, "My Babysitter Wears a Face Veil," "If the Odalisques" and "E-mail from Scheherezad." I would also like to see your thoughts on her poems "Copulation in English" and "Affirmative Action Sonnet," particularly regarding the "intrusion" of Arabic in "Copulation" and especially if you can't read the lines in Arabic.

Hammad writes in an "urban" idiom, using the rhythms and vocabulary of hip hop. Why do you think she has made this choice to express her thoughts and feelings? Does it seem suitable for a daughter of Palestinian refugees growing up in Brooklyn to adopt this form of speech? Is it legitimate or authentic?

The question of gender is fraught with taboos in Arab and Arab-American culture. Randa Jarrar's "Lost in Freakin' Yonkers" is a very autobiographical, confessional piece of fiction. What do you think about Jarrar's use of vulgarity and obscenity, about her treatment of subjects taboo both in American and Arab-American culture, in "Lost in Freakin' Yonkers"?