Beyond the Voice of Egypt
Reclaiming Women’s Histories and Female Authorship in Shirin Neshat’s Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22024737 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marija Antić (0000-0001-7286-2759, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Pages | WLS169-WLS189 |
| Publication date | 2021-09-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Life Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2211-243X • E-ISSN: 2211-243X |
| Publisher | University of Groningen Press (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.21827/ejlw.10.37918 |
| OpenAlex | W3198423270 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
By drawing on postcolonial feminist discourse and Hamid Naficy’s (2001) notion of ‘accented’ cinema, in particular his approach of combining the interstitial position of exilic and diasporic filmmakers with concepts of authorship and genre, this paper explores the intersection between biographical film, gendered rewriting of history, and self-narrative as a site of resistance to nationalist and patriarchal ideologies in Shirin Neshat’s Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017). I argue that Neshat’s authorial style and her position as an exilic artist inflect the biographical film in its traditional form, showcasing an innovative perspective on the genre, restructuring it to reveal the constructedness of not only a cinematic process, but also of history and historical figures. Blending the stories of a present-day Iranian woman filmmaker and the professional life of the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kulthum, Neshat displaces the biopic from its Western-centric roots by explicitly opening it up to a discourse of contemporary gender politics in the Middle East. In doing so, she exposes the social forces that shape the production of the biopic in relation to the notion of female authorship in the context of the transcultural circuits and feminist reclaiming of Oum Kulthum’s international stardom
Aesthetics · Art · Biography · Feminism · Film director · Ideology · Literature · Movie theater · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Turkey's Politics and Society
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |