Suheir Hammad

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Load more

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
Recommended publications
  • Downloaded This Song from the Internet in 2001 Were Banging out a Beat of Their Own to Counter It

    Downloaded This Song from the Internet in 2001 Were Banging out a Beat of Their Own to Counter It

    Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Maysoun Freij 12/11/08 The Lighter Side of Evil: Arab American Artists in New York By Maysoun Freij Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology _________________________________________ Bruce Knauft Advisor _________________________________________ Mehdi Bozorgmehr Committee Member _________________________________________ Kathryn Kozaitis Committee Member _________________________________________ David Nugent Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School ___________________ Date The Lighter Side of Evil: Arab American Artists in New York By Maysoun Freij B.A., University of Chicago, 1993 M.P.H., Emory University, 1997 M.A., Emory University, 2003 Advisor: Bruce Knauft, Ph.D. An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology 2008 Abstract The Lighter Side of Evil: Arab American Artists in New York By Maysoun Freij This dissertation is an ethnography of Arab American artists and arts organizers working in New York from 2003-2006.
  • Born Palestinian, Born Black – Hip Hop As a Means of Criticism of Palestinian Marginalization in Suheir Hammad’S Breaking Poems 1

    Born Palestinian, Born Black – Hip Hop As a Means of Criticism of Palestinian Marginalization in Suheir Hammad’S Breaking Poems 1

    Katharina Motyl Born Palestinian, Born Black – Hip Hop as a Means of Criticism of Palestinian Marginalization in Suheir Hammad’s breaking poems 1. Introduction In her poetry collection breaking poems (2008), Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad breaks new ground by introducing to poetry techniques associated with hip hop, a form of cultural expression rooted in the African American community. Hammad’s oeuvre has always been concerned with thematic parallels between the experience of African Americans and that of Palestinians (see, for instance, her first poetry collection, Born Palestinian, Born Black). Nor was she a stranger to hip hop prior to breaking poems; as a spoken work artist and original cast member of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway as well as of the HBO show of the same name, Hammad’s performance style is closely associated with hip hop. The innovation of her latest poetry collection breaking poems lies in the fact that Hammad has stylistically appropriated hip hop techniques such as the break (or break beat) in writing these poems. In the following, I trace Hammad’s employment of hip hop techniques in selected poems, to then discuss what this fusion of poetry and hip hop achieves. Let me briefly synopsize my argument. I argue that Hammad’s fusion of poetry and hip hop has two effects: first, having emerged as the cultural medium with which those most marginalized in American society expressed their grievances, i.e. black kids in urban ghettoes, hip hop has been popular culture’s central medium of dissent to America’s dominant social structure for decades; creating a powerful parallelism between content and form, Hammad uses techniques associated with hip hop to draw attention to and criticize the lot of one of the world’s most marginalized people today, i.e.
  • Birgit M. Bauridl, “'Rowing for Palestine,' Performing the Other

    Birgit M. Bauridl, “'Rowing for Palestine,' Performing the Other

    Birgit M. Bauridl, “‘Rowing for Palestine,’ Performing the Other: Suheir Hammad, Mark Gerban and Multiple Consciousness,” in Arab American Literature and Culture, ed. Alfred Hornung and Martina Kohl (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012), 221–42. BIRGIT M. BAURIDL “Rowing for Palestine,” Performing the Other: Suheir Hammad, Mark Gerban and Multiple Con- sciousness Introduction When people who don’t know me well . discover my background, . [t]hey no longer know who I am. Privately, they guess at my troubled heart, I suppose—the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds. [T]he tragedy is not mine, or at least not mine alone, it is yours, sons and daughters of Plymouth Rock, and Ellis Island, it is yours, children of Africa, it is the tragedy of both my wife’s six-year-old cousin and his white first grade classmates . I learned long ago to distrust my childhood and the stories that shaped it. (Obama 1995, xv) And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured . because the bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with an eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life; . my name is an irresistible target . (Obama 2004, x). The intention of starting with a quote from President Barack Obama’s 2004 introduction to his autobiography Dreams from My Father is nei- ther to dive into a discussion of current U.S. politics nor to revisit Obama’s personal story. This article begins with Obama’s reflections on his identity because Obama’s position—at the forefront of today’s (global) media landscape—and the decision of U.S.
  • Umm Kulthum Lesson6

    Umm Kulthum Lesson6

    Lesson 6 - Umm Kulthum’s Impact on Contemporary Listeners Essential Questions: • What makes one person, especially an artist, famous or successful? • How can a figure from a different time and place be relevant to our lives today? Objectives: Students will be able to: • Make connections between Umm Kulthum’s power to move her audience and the effect that she has on individual listeners. • Reflect on the impact that music has had on their lives. Standards Alignment: • Common Core Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies o RH 1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources. o RH 4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. o RH 5. Describe how a text presents information • National Standards for Foreign Language Education o Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own. Materials: • Poet Suheir Hammad performing “Bint il Neel” about Umm Kulthum o Start at 05:43 with musical prelude: http://youtu.be/m4Q885qRMwU?t=5m43s • Excerpt of “Bint il Neel” – Suheir Hammad’s poem about Umm Kulthum (for students) • About Suheir Hammad (for teacher use) Copyright © 2012 Al Bustan Seeds of Culture. All Rights Reserved. Procedure (suggested time): Opening/Hook/Activate Prior Knowledge/Do Now (5) As students come in, they should write their answer in a journal or on other paper to the prompt you have written on the board. “What kind of music do your parents listen to? Do you like or dislike that kind of music? What do you like or dislike about it?” Viewing Suheir Hammad’s Performace of “Bint il Neel” (5) Introduce Suheir Hammad, an Arab-American poet.
  • Counter-Narratives in the Spoken Word Poetry of Suheir Hammad

    Counter-Narratives in the Spoken Word Poetry of Suheir Hammad

    COPAS—Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 16.1 (2015) Breaking Dichotomies: Counter-Narratives in the Spoken Word Poetry of Suheir Hammad Author Denijal Jegić Abstract: This article analyzes the spoken word poetry of the Palestinian-American author, Suheir Hammad, who attempts to deconstruct dichotomies between Arabs and Americans and to create a concept of transnational humanness. Through cultural criticism, Hammad reverses the process of Othering when she humanizes Palestinians and detaches suffering from national belonging. Her creative resistance represents a renegotiation of Americanness and its relation to Islam and Arabs, and opens up de-nationalized spaces of comparison. Keywords: Spoken Word; Palestinian-American Literature; Suheir Hammad; Orientalism Introduction Discussing the US-American suffering in the aftermath of 9/11, Suheir Hammad proclaims in a spoken word performance: “If there are any people on earth who understand how New York is feeling right now, they are in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” (“First Writing Since”). Countering widespread cultural dichotomies between the US and its perception of the Arab world, Hammad constructs a transnational link between the sufferings of two different peoples by substituting geographical distance with emotional proximity. She erases perceived ethno-national differences and instead conceptualizes new forms of transnational co-existence. In poetry, prose, and most significantly in spoken word, Hammad presents narratives of dispossession and dislocation, discussing questions of identity from local and transnational points of view, identifying simultaneously as Palestinian, African, and American, while relocating the Palestinian struggle within a transnational framework of shared suffering. She advocates a de-nationalized feeling of subjugation through a global experience of colonialism and powerlessness within hegemonic discourses.
  • Palestinian Diaspora and Feminine Identity in Suheir Hammad's Poetry As Reflected in the Conflict Between Alienation and Integration

    Palestinian Diaspora and Feminine Identity in Suheir Hammad's Poetry As Reflected in the Conflict Between Alienation and Integration

    Palestinian Diaspora and Feminine Identity Palestinian Diaspora and Feminine Identity in Suheir Hammad's Poetry As Reflected in the Conflict between Alienation and Integration )*( Mohammad Sayed Abdel-Moneim Sharaf Abstract Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian American poet, playwright, actor, and political activist. Though Hammad has been raised and educated in America, she has retained her Arabic identity. This dual life brings about a conflict between a feeling of alienation, on the one hand, and a powerful sense of integration, on the other. Hammad articulates this conflict in her writings from a feminist perspective by zeroing in on the misery of Palestinian women, black women, and women of ethnic minorities in general. The present paper highlights the conflict between alienation and integration on the level of Suheir Hammad the woman using as evidence her views and opinions expressed in some of her interviews, essays, and other prose writings, besides the views of various critics and scholars. On the level of Suheir Hammad the woman poet, the study traces her feminist approach to the conflict through her poetry. * Dr. Mohammad Sayed Abdel-Moneim Sharaf is a lecturer in the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Zagazig University. 384 Annals of the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University -Volume 43 (January -March 2015) Mohammad Sayed Abdel-Moneim Sharaf الشتات الفلسطينى و هوية المرأة فى شعر سهير حماد كما يتمثﻻن فى الصراع بين الغربة و اﻹنتماء محمد سيد عبد المنعم شرف ملخص تعتبر سهير حماد شاعرة و كاتبة مسرحية و ممثلة و ناشطةة سياسطية و ط مواةنططة
  • 'Talking Back': Counter-Hegemonic Discourses of North

    'Talking Back': Counter-Hegemonic Discourses of North

    ‘Talking Back’: Counter-Hegemonic Discourses of North American Arab and Muslim Women Artists Kenza Oumlil A Thesis In the Department of Communication Studies Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada August 2012 © Kenza Oumlil, 2012 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Kenza Oumlil Entitled: ‘Talking Back’: Counter-Hegemonic Discourses of North American Arab and Muslim Women Artists and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Dr. G. Dover External Examiner Dr. S. Salaita External to Program Dr. G. Mahrouse Examiner Dr. K. Lynes Examiner Dr. M. Gagnon Thesis Supervisor Dr. Y. Jiwani Approved by Dr. M. Allor, Graduate Program Director August 31, 2012 Dr. B. Lewis, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science ii ABSTRACT ‘Talking Back’: Counter-Hegemonic Discourses of North American Arab and Muslim Women Artists Kenza Omlil, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2012 This dissertation research examines expressions and articulations of counter- hegemonic discourses on the part of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and Middle-Eastern women in the U.S. and Canada, with a particular attention to race and gender. As they are predominantly constructed as passive and imperilled in mainstream media, this doctoral work looks at how some of these women take voice and ‘talk back’ by creating their own media texts.
  • From Slam to Def Poetry Jam: Spoken Word Poetry and Its Counterpublics

    From Slam to Def Poetry Jam: Spoken Word Poetry and Its Counterpublics

    Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies Vol. 10, No. 3/4 (2014) From Slam to Def Poetry Jam: Spoken Word Poetry and its Counterpublics Susan B. A. Somers-Willett Poetry slams—raucous poetry competitions where poets perform their own compositions and judges selected from the audience score them from 0.0-10.0— are practices rooted in the public sphere. These local performance poetry com- petitions, which originated in the mid-1980s in white working-class Chicago bars as the brainchild of ex-construction worker Marc Smith, have spawned national and global competitions. Now, over twenty-five years since the birth of slam, the National Poetry Slam (NPS) annually hosts teams from nearly eighty cities across the U.S. and Canada. As slam entered the twenty-first century, its poets started to appear on larger and more public stages, including documentary and feature films, cable television, Broadway, the White House, and the Open- ing Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics. This exposure has, at times, ven- tured toward the cliché; in 2004, slam poetry garnered the dubious honor of be- coming the subject of a book in The Complete Idiot’s Guide series (M. Smith & Kraynak, 2004), and parodies of and references to poetry slams have appeared on MTV, The Simpsons, The Daily Show, and Oprah to name a few. Both parodies and serious critiques of poetry slams caricature their poets as soulful loudmouths with a grudge—against either mainstream society, a specific oppressor, or the Susan B.A. Somers-Willett is the author of a book of criticism, The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2009), as well as two books of poetry, Quiver (University of Georgia Press, 2009) and Roam (Crab Orchard Award Series, 2006).
  • Future Aesthetics

    Future Aesthetics

    UP from the UNDER GROUND Documentation of the Ford Foundation’s Future Aesthetics Program, 2002-2014 UP from the UNDERGROUND 1 << Include Ford Founda- tion logo + IDA logo>> Executive Summary Introduction Definition of Future Aesthetics Report Methodology Future Aesthetics In Historical Context Overview of Future Aesthetics Program The Future Aesthetics Organizational Structure: Why A Cohort? A History of Future Aesthetics Stage 1: Open Inquiry Period: 2002-2005 Stage 2: Development and Maturation, 2004-2009 Stage 3: Decline, Impact, and Change, 2008-2014 Findings List of Recommendations Organizational Profiles Alternate Roots Hip Hop Theater Festival La Peña Cultural Center Miami Light Project Rennie Harris Puremovement Universes BY JEFF CHANG Youth Speaks Bibliography Acknowledgments CONTENTS Appendices JAKEYA CARUTHERS A: Non-Profit Arts and the Next Generation: Some Observations and Questions from the Hip-Hop Generation’s Entre into the Nonprofit Arts Field By James Kass for Youth Speaks and Alexis Frasz for Helicon Collaborative B. Future Aesthetics: Hip-Hop & Contemporary Performance Artist Dialogue KAI KANE AOKI IZU By Anna Alves, with contributions from Jeff Chang, Sylvia Sherman, Mikiko Thelwell and Eddie Torres C. Future Aesthetics: The Impact of Hip-Hop Culture In Contemporary Performance Community Forum with Jonathan Leal By Anna Alves D. Future Aesthetics: The Impact of Hip-Hop Culture In Contemporary Stewart Gray Yeji Jung Colin Kimzey Cody Laux Lan Anh Le Taylor Litchfield Draft of Executive Summary By Sylvia Sherman and Caron Atlas Malcolm Lizzappi Yinshi Lerman-Tan Maia Paroginog Mia Ritter-Whittle E. Select List of Key Events F. List of Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant Recipients UP from the UNDERGROUND UP from the UNDERGROUND 3 EXECUTIVE FINDINGS SUMMARY In the early 2000s, the Future Aesthetics program of the Ford Founda- The program began with a set of convenings, which brought together 1.