Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices

Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies

by Ella Shohat

Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices brings together for the first time a selection of trailblazing essays by Ella Shohat, an internationally renowned theorist of postcolonial and cultural studies of Iraqi-Jewish background. Written over the past two decades, these twelve essays—some classic, some less known, some new—trace a powerful intellectual trajectory as Shohat rigorously teases out the consequences of a deep critique of Eurocentric epistemology, whether to rethink feminism through race, nationalism through ethnicity, or colonialism through sexuality. Shohat’s critical method boldly transcends disciplinary and geographical boundaries. She explores such issues as the relations between ethnic studies and area studies, the paradoxical repercussions for audio-visual media of the “graven images” taboo, the allegorization of race through the refiguring of Cleopatra, the allure of imperial popular culture, and the gender politics of medical technologies. She also examines the resistant poetics of exile and displacement; the staging of historical memory through the commemorations of the two 1492s, the anomalies of the “national” in Zionist discourse, the implications of the hyphen in the concept “Arab-Jew,” and the translation of the debates on orientalism and postcolonialism across geographies. Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices not only illuminates many of the concerns that have animated the study of cultural politics over the past two decades; it also points toward new scholarly possibilities.

Genres: Nonfiction, Judaism, History, Jewish, Theory

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Ella Habiba Shohat (Arabic: إيلا حبيبة شوحط; born 1959) is Professor of Cultural Studies at New York University, and has taught, lectured and written extensively on issues having to do with Eurocentrism and Orientalism, as well as with postcolonial and transnational approaches to Cultural Studies. More specifically, since the 1980s she has developed critical approaches to the study of Arab Jews/Mizrahim in the context of Israel and Palestine. Born to a Baghdadi family, Ella Habiba Shohat defines herself as an Arab Jew.

Her writing has been translated into several languages, including: Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Polish, and Italian. Shohat has also served on the editorial board of several journals, including: Social Text; Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies; Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism; Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies; and Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. She is a recipient of such fellowships as Rockefeller and the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, where she also taught at the School of Criticism and Theory. Recently she was awarded a Fulbright research / lectureship at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, for working on the cultural intersections between the Middle East and Latin America.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Dylia · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐
كتاب مهم يكشف لنا عن أساليب صهيونية خطيرة، و يضيء لنا عن واقع يهود العالم الثالث في الأراضي المحتلة؛ فهم ليسوا سوى أكثر من أيدي عاملة رخيصة.
(يمكن لنا بتقويم تاريخي القول أن الصهيونية كانت، بمعان عدة، عبارة عن عملية غش كبيرة تجاه الشرقيين.فهي محت و بمنهجية تاريخ يهودِ البلاد الإسلامية و ثقافتهم و هوّيتهم، و أفلحت ، خلال جيل أو اثنين، في القضاء على حضارة من آلاف السنين كانت متعاشقة في جزء منها مع العالم الإسلامي. اُقتلع يهود البلاد العربية، و على نحو مؤلم، من ثقافتهم و اصطدموا بواقع قاسٍ جعلهم يطرحون على أنفسهم غير مرة ذلك السؤال: "أما كان الأفضل لنا لو بقينا هناك" ) ص 89 و 90.

[Sima]

Reading it now.

[Abbas Al-Anbori · Rating 5 out of 5]

من اجمل ما قرأت ..
يهودية عراقية تعيش في امريكا
تتحدث عن ان اليهود العرب اقرب للعرب من اليهود في اسرائيل !

[Shayma Kindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب مهم جدا لفهم رؤيه مثقفي اليهود العرب لحقيقه وجودهم في اسرائيل
فهم يعلمون انهم مجرد حشو لوليمه لا يتمتع بها الا الاشكناز(يهود أوربا)