Please note that due to adverse weather conditions this talk has been moved to Zoom.

Oral poetry by Bedouin women gives expression to emotions roused by events in their daily life. Subjects run the gamut from grieving over personal loss and marital unhappiness to jocular jousting or rejection of being locked up in mud houses. These poets do not ask for a revolution but for empathy, and in doing so find a measure of emotional  release. Some women gained fame across the tribal spectrum for their daring in speaking out and great art. Their realistic sensitivity offers a welcome counterpoint to the steady drumbeat of heroic idealism and stereotyped images of women in male battles for poetic preeminence. Recently, they have been given an academic voice of their own in the work of Ḥiṣṣah Hilāl, a Saudi Bedouin author, published by the Abu Dhabi Academy for Poetry, and award-winner in the Emirates’ “Million’s Poet” competition.

Speaker
Marcel Kurpershoek, Visiting Scholar

Moderated by
Maurice Pomerantz, Senior Director NYUAD Institute, Professor of Literature and Arab Crossroads Studies

In Person (NYUAD Campus) and on Zoom

The seminar is open to the NYUAD community and by invitation. Please register below.