CMPL 202 - Women,Sex,Taboos ME Cine & Lit

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
This course examines the ways creative women in the contemporary Middle East have learned to rebel against the social discourses that reinforce their silence, control their behavior, and regulate their sexuality. Through novels, short stories, poems, graphic novels, and films from Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, we explore literary, visual, and cinematic expressions of women’s subjectivity and agency in contexts of cultural constraint and outright negation. Emphasis will be placed on how Middle Eastern women have broken taboos on silence and violence and reclaimed their sexuality, so often cloaked in shame and dishonor.