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Suheir Hammad: Exploring the Voice and Identity of a Contemporary Palestinian American Poet Diplomarbeit Zur Erlangung des Magistergrades Mag. phil. an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg Eingereicht von CORNELIA SIPURA Gutachterin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hanna Wallinger Fachbereich: Anglistik und Amerikanistik Salzburg, Februar 2021 Eidesstaatliche Erklärung Ich erkläre hiermit eidesstattlich [durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift], dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht als Bachelor-/ Master-/ Diplomarbeit/ Dissertation eingereicht. _________________________________ Datum, Unterschrift Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hanna Wallinger for her support and guidance, particularly during the last stages of my studies. Furthermore, I want to thank my family, most importantly my parents who supported me every step of the way. Without them, this journey would not have been possible. CONTENTS Introduction.................................................................................................. ........... 1 1 Overview and Terminology 1.1. Biographical Insights............................................................................ 5 1.2. Defining Memoir................................................................................... 11 1.3. Memoir: Drops of This Story............................................................... 13 1.4. The Racialization of Arab Americans in the United States.................. 18 2 Literary Classifications 2.1. Arab-American Women’s Writing........................................................23 3 Analysis and Discussion: Hammad’s Poetry 3.1. Overview Published Poetry............................... ................................... 28 3.2. Style & Poetic Oeuvre.......................................................................... 30 3.3. Born Palestinian, Born Black............................................................... 33 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 47 Works Cited............................................................................................................. 50 INTRODUCTION The poem “First Writing Since” (2001) by Suheir Hammad, indeed, ushered in a new era for Arab American women’s writing post 9/11. “First Writing Since” addresses the local and global repercussions of 9/11 for Arab American people in the U.S. (Harb, Articulations 150). The poem’s publication was subsequently followed by the 9/11 attacks. Very importantly, “First Writing Since” arguably both changed the succession of both Arab American literature and Arab American women’s writing more specifically. Above all, 9/11 changed the lives of many Arab American people living in the United States for good. The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze key parts of the memoir Drops of This Story (1996) and selected poems of Born Palestinian, Born Black (1996) by Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad through the lens of feminism and race. Besides the analysis of the primary sources, the paratext, in particular, adds substantially to the analysis of the two publications. Moreover, the analysis of these two distinct genres complicates a straight-forward analysis; meaning the genre memoir and the specific poetic style of Suheir Hammad. The poetic style in Drops of This Story resonates on many levels with poems of Born Palestinian, Born Black. This includes but is not limited to the omission of capitalization and punctuation as well as addressing issues such as the racialization of other ethnic minorities and Blackness; as well as the comparison of the shared struggle of Palestinians in the Gaza strip and African Americans in the United States. Considering that Hammad’s Drops of This Story represents an Arab American woman’s articulation of autobiographical writing, this trajectory gets even more complicated. The critics Carol-Fedda Conrey and Keith Feldman, in particular, discuss the still under researched domain of Arab American women’s autobiographical writing in the anthology Arab Women’s Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing (2007). The editor Nawar Al-Hassan Golley of the same anthology moreover offers insight into the domain of contemporary Arab women’s autobiographical writings. 1 The analysis of Hammad’s memoir Drops of This Story (1996) is informed by the theoretical framework of Smith and Watson (2010) and accompanied by the research insights of critics Carol-Fadda Conrey, Keith Feldman and Nawar Al-Hassan Golley. Taking into account these implications, I am going to investigate the manifestations of a double-consciousness and diasporic consciousness in Hammad’s memoir Drops of This Story (1996) and in selected poems of her poetry collection Born Palestinian, Born Black (1996). I argue that the narrating I in these publications demonstrates a consciousness that navigates between a double-consciousness and an almost diasporic consciousness. To detect the identity formation and how this resonates in the writing of Suheir Hammad - who confirms Palestinian roots, states an affiliation with American culture and a chosen identification as African American (cf. Bauridl 229) – represents an endeavor that is fraught with several ambiguities. Many critics and scholars have spotted manifestations of a Du Boisian concept of double-consciousness (Moshen et. al 2016; Metres 2015; Bauridl 2012; Lubin 2014) in Hammad’s poetry; recent scholarship, however, also places Hammad in the field of transnational studies and geopolitics. In contrast to Hammad’s poetry, her memoir Drops of This Story, yet, poses the difficulty that memoirs as such are always fictitious; as a result, the reader is left wondering whether and to which degree autobiographical truth can be assumed (Smith and Watson 15). Smith and Watson (2010) offer a comprehensive discussion for the interpretation of life narratives. The authors particularly point out the difficulties of defining people with “multiple identities” in their subchapter “identities as intersectional” (Smith and Watson 41). Watson and Smith stress that postcolonial writers have been eager to come up with terms that characterize identities with a history of oppression (Smith and Watson 42). Among the terms the authors list, two terms describe best what could be considered the circumstances of Suheir Hammad: “diasporic” and “minoritized” (Smith and Watson 42). 2 Yet another miscellaneous point of discussion is the question of “exile”; whether there is a definite diasporic consciousness in Hammad’s poetry or even in her memoir, is, on any account, also a question of whether Hammad should be considered as in a state of exile in the first place. These examples of Hammad’s early poetry offer an insight into her development as a writer and poet as well. As is the case with the poetry of Born Palestinian, Born Black, facets of a double-consciousness and diasporic consciousness can also be spotted in her memoir Drops of This Story. My main area of interest lies in Hammad’s claimed racial and cultural identification as Black and the related Arab and African American histories of solidarity. Hammad explicitly states “I was born a Black woman [...]” (Hammad, Born Palestinian, Born Black ix) in her poetry collection Born Palestinian, Born Black. Suheir Hammad was particularly intrigued by the last stanza of June Jordan’s poem “Moving Towards Home”. Hammad quotes Jordan in her author’s note of Born Palestinian, Born Black: I was born a Black woman And now I am become a Palestinian against the relentless laughter of evil there is less and and less living room and where are my loved ones? It is time to make our way home (Hammad, Born Palestinian, Born Black ix). 3 It is widely acknowledged that June Jordan substantially influenced Hammad’s poetry. Hammad, however, already claims an African heritage in her first piece of writing Drops of This Story (1996) by stating that she is a “descendant of Africans”. In the author’s note of her memoir Drops of This Story Hammad writes: “Still my parents’ daughter, child of God, Palestinian, descendant of Africans, woman” (Hammad, Drops, n.p.). It is beyond the scope of this thesis to discuss and analyze all three of Hammad’s published poetry collections; therefore I am not able to discuss her second and third published poetry collections ZaatarDiva (2005) and Breaking Poems (2008). As well I investigate several interviews with Suheir Hammad, which in particular provides an additional, useful source of information for a broader understanding of Hammad’s literary legacy. Moreover, for the analysis, I am going to examine the peritexs1 in Drops of This Story and Born Palestinian, Born Black. The peritexts in Drops of This Story include the author’s note, one poem (“an olive pit [...]” and several photographs that depict Hammad’s childhood up until adulthood; the peritexts in Born Palestinian, Born Black include the acknowledgments and the author’s note. As far as a definition of the genre of Hammad’s poetry is concerned, a definite categorization of the published poetry is rather difficult to determine. First of all, it is crucial to note that Hammad
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