Women’s Writing in Action

On Female-authored Hajj Narratives in Qajar Iran

Bibliographic Data

ID9978705
AuthorsPiotr Bachtin (0000-0001-9418-6923, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume54
Issue1-2
Pages67-93
Publication date2020-03-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIranian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-0862 • E-ISSN: 1475-4819
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/00210862.2020.1724506
OpenAlexW3010197525
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

This paper examines the textual and performative functions of early women’s writings on the example of three accounts of the pilgrimage to Mecca written during the Qajar era by Mehrmāh Khānom ʿEsmat al-Saltaneh (1880–81), the anonymous Hājiyeh Khānom ʿAlaviyeh Kermāni (1892–94), and Sakineh Soltān Vaqār al-Dowleh Esfahāni Kuchak (1899–1901). It ponders on the relationships between the female writers and textuality, their readers and, finally, the diary personas they created. It claims that their writings emerged in the process of negotiating the then existing, masculine models of textuality and authorial authority. By rejecting the monologic authoritativeness of literature and textuality, the women diarists transformed their texts into a space for dialogue—including dialogue with themselves

Action (physics · Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Literature · Narrative · Negotiation · Performative utterance · Pilgrimage · Social science · Sociology · Textuality · African history and culture analysis · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History

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