Professor Hoda Elsadda
Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World
Co-director of CASAW
Address: Middle Eastern Studies,
School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures,
University of Manchester,
Oxford Road,
Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Phone: + 44 (0) 161 275 8121
Email: hoda.elsadda@manchester.ac.uk
Office Hours: See notice on office door (Humanities Lime Grove SG.19)
New funding opportunities in Arab World Studies, please see the 2007/08 SLLC Funding Opportunities page and the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW)
Research Specialisation
- Oral histories of Arab women: I am currently working on collecting and analyzing oral narratives of Egyptian women focusing on issues of representation in local and global contexts and addressing the challenges of interpreting experience. Since representations of Arab women in the contemporary world are the site of power struggles and contested meanings, I am particularly interested in the geopolitics of the construction of knowledge in and about the post colonial Arab world.
- Discourses on gender in modern Arab history: I have published several articles and edited two books dealing with discourses on gender, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I have argued that a revision of the dominant modernist discourses in the twentieth century that takes into consideration gender as a category of analysis will lead to a revision of some of the assumed ideological dichotomies that dominate Arab history. I am currently interested in exploring constructions of modern masculinities in the early twentieth century, or the male question.
- Women's creative writings: I have published a number of articles on Egyptian women writers. I am particularly interested in autobiographies and memoirs as well as Arab authors writing in English.
- Translation: I have translated two anthologies of Arabic short stories into English and have edited and supervised translations into Arabic of theoretical and historical work on gender issues. I am currently interested in theoretical and research issues in this field, especially translation as metaphor and gender and translation.
Research Supervision
I will be happy to supervise theses with a focus on gender and culture in the Middle East, Arab women's writing, Arabic literature and popular culture.
Publications
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Professional Biography
My career started in the field of English and Comparative Literature. I obtained my B.A from the Department of English at Cairo University, my M.A. from the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo and my Ph.D. from Cairo University. The title of my dissertation was English poets in Egypt during the Second World War . I later developed an interest in gender in the context of postcolonial literatures and theory and have gradually concentrated my efforts for the past fifteen years on researching gender issues in the Arab World. In 1992, I co-founded and co-edited Hagar, an interdisciplinary journal in women's studies published in Arabic. More specifically, I am currently working on narratives and oral histories of Arab women, as well as discourses on gender in modern Arab history, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
In addition to scholarly interest in these areas, I have also been engaged in activist campaigns and have founded and participated in independent women's groups and projects in Egypt since 1992. In 1994, I coordinated a project that sought to modify the existing Egyptian marriage contract so as to include certain conditions that would safeguard the legal rights of women. The campaign developed to incorporate further modifications in the legal system, and ultimately culminated in some modifications in 2000 allowing women to opt for and secure a form of divorce known as Khul'.
In 1997, I co-founded (and was Director between 1997-2000; and 2004-2005) the Women and Memory Forum, a research organization which brings together researchers and activists focusing on rereading Arab cultural history from a gender-sensitive perspective. The Forum has played an important role in promoting the field of gender studies in Egypt through various activities, conferences and publications. As founding member of the Women and Memory Forum I have been actively engaged in obtaining research grants from international funding organizations for research programs.
In 1997, I was Visiting Fellow at The International Centre for Research on Women (Washington D.C.). In 2001, I joined The Arab Families Working Group as a member of the core research group. In 2003, I was a Yale World Fellow at Yale University.
Consultancy and Membership of Editorial Boards & Advisory Committees
2006- Associate Editor of the Online Edition of the Encyclopedia of Women in Muslim Cultures (EWIC) published by Brill.
2005 - Member of editorial board, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES).
2005 - Consultant Editor, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Second Edition (forthcoming 2008).
2005 - Member of the Advisory Board, The Global Fund for Women.
2004 - Member of the Advisory Committee, The Anna Lindh Euro- Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures.
2004. Member, The National Council for Human Rights in Egypt.
2004 - 2006. Arabic Book Review Editor, H-Gender Mideast.
2003. Member of the Core Team, The Arab Human Development Report, UNDP.
2003 - 2005 Member of The Literature Committee, Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
1999. Board Member, The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
1995 - 2004 Board Member, The Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women.
Teaching Areas:
Gender and culture in the Middle East, Arab women's writing, Arabic literature and popular culture.