Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 58 | 2022
Research Article | Writing Sexuality in the Autobiographical Form
Writing Sexuality in the Autobiographical Form
- Miral Mahgoub - Arizona State University, USA - email
Abstract
This article explores the representation of the female body and sexuality in modern Arab women’s writing in Egypt, focusing on the 1990s generation and the emergence of a new literary trend of explicit writing, or so-called kitābath al-jasad, which exposes bodily subjects using explicit sexual language, prohibited sensual themes, and erotic fantasies as tools of revolt against social and political taboos and as a means of challenging extremist Islamic religious rhetoric and the patriarchal authority. My representative example of this generation and this writing is Egyptian novelist Mona Prince. In her novel, So You May See (2011), experience connects to nakedness protest movements by using the body as a key vehicle to protest fundamentalist religious powers that oppose women’s liberation. In both contexts of body protest (clothed or unclothed), female sexuality is the tool par excellence to combat religious extremist rhetoric that amplifies hostility towards women.
Submitted: March 22, 2022 | Accepted: June 13, 2022 | Published June 30, 2022 | Language: en
Keywords Censorship • Nakedness writing • Female body • Eroticism in Arab literature • Sexual explicitness • Female sexuality • Mona Prince • Women’s writing • Taboos
Copyright © 2022 Miral Mahgoub. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2022/01/006
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| DC Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
dc.identifier |
ECF_article_8785 |
|
dc.title |
Writing Sexuality in the Autobiographical Form. A Reflection of Mona Prince’s Novel So You May See |
|
dc.contributor.author |
Mahgoub Miral |
|
dc.publisher |
Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari |
|
dc.type |
Research Article |
|
dc.language.iso |
en |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/annali-di-ca-foscari-serie-orientale/2022/1/writing-sexuality-in-the-autobiographical-form/ |
|
dc.description.abstract |
This article explores the representation of the female body and sexuality in modern Arab women’s writing in Egypt, focusing on the 1990s generation and the emergence of a new literary trend of explicit writing, or so-called kitābath al-jasad, which exposes bodily subjects using explicit sexual language, prohibited sensual themes, and erotic fantasies as tools of revolt against social and political taboos and as a means of challenging extremist Islamic religious rhetoric and the patriarchal authority. My representative example of this generation and this writing is Egyptian novelist Mona Prince. In her novel, So You May See (2011), experience connects to nakedness protest movements by using the body as a key vehicle to protest fundamentalist religious powers that oppose women’s liberation. In both contexts of body protest (clothed or unclothed), female sexuality is the tool par excellence to combat religious extremist rhetoric that amplifies hostility towards women. |
|
dc.relation.ispartof |
Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale |
|
dc.relation.ispartof |
Vol. 58 | June 2022 |
|
dc.issued |
2022-06-30 |
|
dc.dateAccepted |
2022-06-13 |
|
dc.dateSubmitted |
2022-03-22 |
|
dc.identifier.issn |
|
|
dc.identifier.eissn |
2385-3042 |
|
dc.rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License |
|
dc.rights.uri |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
|
dc.identifier.doi |
10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2022/01/006 |
|
dc.peer-review |
yes |
|
dc.subject |
Censorship |
|
dc.subject |
Eroticism in Arab literature |
|
dc.subject |
Female body |
|
dc.subject |
Female sexuality |
|
dc.subject |
Mona Prince |
|
dc.subject |
Nakedness writing |
|
dc.subject |
Sexual explicitness |
|
dc.subject |
Taboos |
|
dc.subject |
Women’s writing |
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