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January 23, 2007
Professor, poet, and novelist Mohja Kahf will be reading from her works and talking about life as a Muslim at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 29, in Room 1001, Wiekamp Hall, Indiana University South Bend. A reception and book signing will follow. The evening is free and open to the public.
The lecture titled "Burqas, Bras, and Battlezones: The Varied Tales of the Veil," will include a reading from her 2006 novel, "The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf."
The event will provide the campus and the community at large with an opportunity to listen, learn, and reflect on the diverse experiences of U.S. Muslims. The talk's focus on the "veil" is a way into the broader topic of reconsidering misunderstandings and meanings of Islam in the U.S. from non-Muslim and Muslim perspectives.
As well as being a gifted poet and writer, Kahf is a professor of comparative literature and Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. Her writings examine the lives of Muslim women in academic writing and in poetry.
Kahf's first novel, "The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf," takes readers into the world of Khadra Shamy, who grows up in a devout Muslim family in the middle of Indiana – an experience Kahf describes as taking place at the "intersection of Islamic dress and bad polyester during the 1970s." Khadra continually questions what it means to be "Muslim" and "American" as she endures taunts and violence.
Kahf was born in Damascus, Syria, and grew up near Indianapolis. She received her doctorate in comparative literature from Rutgers University in 1994, and began teaching at the University of Arkansas in 1995.
She says the new book borrows from her life but is not autobiographical.
Kahf's "E-mail from Scheherazad" was a finalist in the Paterson Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been published in The Paris Review, The Atlantic Review, Banipal, Mizna, Tiferet and Exquisite Corpse.
She is at work on a collection of short stories and a novella based on her column, "Sex and the Ummah," written for the online magazine Muslim Wakeup!
Her visit is sponsored by Women's Studies, Academic Affairs, International Programs, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the MLS Program, and the Department of English. The event is part of the year’s campus theme of diversity and dialogue.
For further information contact Rebecca Torstrick at (574) 520-5534 or rtorstri@iusb.edu/.
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