Women, Middle Eastern, Social Sciences, Feminist Theory 

This book examines late twentieth-century autobiographical writings by Arab women writers in their social, political, and rhetorical contexts, exploring the ways in which Arab women have portrayed and created themselves within differing social environments. The profuse production of autobiographical works by Arab women throughout the twentieth century, and especially in the last two decades, as evidenced in this book, shows the increasing role and contribution of Arab women writers to autobiographical writings. However, the field of Arab women's autobiographical writings remains under-researched and in need of further investigation. T he available critical readings do not match the number of autobiographical writings that Arab women are producing. This book, Exploring Identity: Readings in Contemporary Arab Women's Autobiographical Writings, together with Golley's first pioneering book in the field, Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies. Shahrazad Tells her Story (2003), will hopefully encourage further critical and theoretical questioning of Arab women's modes of self-representation and personal narratives. Examining a number of contemporary Arab women's various expressions of private and public experiences, this book shows the active and engaged roles of Arab women in determining not only their own lives but those of many others in their societies at large. To this end, it contains analytical studies that are informed by and grounded in theoretical discussions of autobiography, feminist, cultural, and postcolonial studies. - from Amzon