Writers Backstage كٌّتاب خلف الكوالي‪س‬ Writers Backstage

I recorded this interview at the beginning of Ramadan, and I'm so glad that it will be published at last. I believe that research and publications are important and are worth paying attention to if you are pursuing your higher studies or simply completing your bachelor degree. In this interview we look at the process of publication and how to find that academic space where you can voice your argument and publish. 

Dr Deborah M. Mix is Professor of English at Ball State University, where she teaches courses in American literature. She is the author of "A Vocabulary of Thinking": Gertrude Stein and Contemporary North American Women's Experimental Writing (Iowa 2007) and the co-editor, with Logan Esdale, of Approaches to Teaching the Works of Gertrude Stein (MLA 2018). Her essays on American poetry have appeared in collections like Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (Routledge 2020), Approaches to Teaching Baraka's Dutchman (MLA 2018), and The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets (Cambridge 2016) as well as in journals including Contemporary Women's Writing, Studies in the Humanities, and American Literature.

In this episode Mona and I cruise over different Arab/ Muslim writing genres. I read a part from "Avenger, Mutant, or Allah: A Short Evolution of the Depiction of Muslims in Marvel Comics" by Nicholaus Pumphrey and then I highlight 4 important muslim characters that are very popular today in comics. Some of the characters I talk about are Soorya Qadir (Dust) , Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan), Kahina Eskandari (Iron Butterfly), and Qahera.  

Mona takes us back to the genre of the novel highlighting three critically acclaimed novels by Diana Abu-Jaber which are, Crescent (2003), Arabian Jazz (1993), and culinary memoir The Language of Baklava (2005).

In this episode, Mona and I try to bring together old and new issues about Arabs and Arab Americans. Mona tells us about Mikhail Naimy and reads to us one of his poems that was song by Fayrouz herself. The poem is entitled " Autumn Leaves". I chose to highlight an article entitled "The Arab in American Cinema: From bad to worse, or getting better. It was originally published in 2002. The article highlights the different genres of films in American cinema that Arabs appears in, like The Sheik, Fantasy and Magic, The Mummy, Exotic Settings for European's and Bafoons and Tycoons, and the Arab Israeli Conflict. Enjoy listening to this amazing episode and look for our other episodes in the near future. 

Can't believe that we have started our second season for this wonderful podcast, Writers Back Stage. In this 1st episode of the second season, Mona and I carry to talk about issues related to Arab American literature, like the most important themes, as Mona reminds listeners of Gibran Khalil Gibran, the Godfather of Mahjar and Arab American literature. I turn to an article by Barbra Nimri Azizi on Third World Feminism. Barbara Nimri Aziz is an anthropologist and journalist based in New York most famous for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies. 

“We  only  saw  it  from  a  distance  [her  Arabic  heritage]”,  Helen  Hatab  Samhan explains. “It was all very foreign to us”. It’s true that Helen’s ex-tended  family  maintained  close  ties  and  that  her  mother  continued  to  cook Syrian food. But that was it (Bint  Arab:  Arab  and  Arab  American  Women  in  the  United  States, by Evelyn Shakir) 

In this Episode Mona and I talk about the importance of food in Arab American writings by focusing on the one critical article "Our Roots in the Mezze: The Politics of Food and Arab-American Women Poets" by Nathalie Handal.

Handal concludes that "[...] food  has  many  meanings.  It  can  be  a  symbolic  re-presentation  of  someone,  of  a  culture  or  an  emotion,  or  it  might  be  used  to  express,  relay  a  message  or  set  the  stage  for  a  love  scene  or  any  event.  But  beyond  that  we  all  have  an  intimate  relationship  with  food  that  never  ends.  Food  is  its  own  language  and  encompasses  our  entirety  –  our  roots,  our  old  and  new  identity  and  culture,  our  bodies  and minds, our loves and desires, ourselves" (155).

In this episode I interview Dr Emily Ruth Rutter. Dr Rutter is an Associate Professor of English at Ball State University. She is the author of Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line (University Press of Mississippi, 2018), The Blues Muse: Race, Gender, and Musical Celebrity in American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 2018), and the forthcoming Black Celebrity: Contemporary Representations of Postbellum Athletes and Artists (University of Delaware Press, Fall 2021). Along with Tiffany Austin, Sequoia Maner, and darlene anita scott, she co-edited Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (Routledge, 2020). Her numerous essays have been published in African American Review, Aethlon, and MELUS, among other journals.

In the episode we focus on possible definitions of ethnic American literature, children's literature, and national sports. I specifically focus on Dr Rutters book Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line (University Press of Mississippi, 2018. Enjoy :)