Amal Amireh

Dr. Amireh received a BA in English literature from Birzeit University in the West Bank and an MA and a PhD in English and American literature from Boston University. Before joining George Mason University, Amireh taught at An-Najah National University and Birzeit University (both in West Bank/Palestine).

She is author of The Factory Girl and the Seamstress: Imagining Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (Garland, 2000), and is co-editor, with Lisa Suhair Majaj of Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers (Garland, 2000) and Etel Adnan: Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist (McFarland, 2002). Her writings on Arab women and Arabic literature have appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Critique, and GLQ: The Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, among others and as chapters in various edited collections. 

Selected Publications

"Of Heroes and Men: the Crisis of Masculinity in the Post-Oslo Palestinian Narrative." In Constructions of Masculinity in the Middle East and North Africa. Mohja Kahf and Nadine Sinno, eds. University of Cairo Press, forthcoming. 

“’They are not like your daughters or mine’: Spectacles of Bad Women from the Arab Spring.” In Bad Girls of the Arab World. Nadia Yacoub and Rula Quwas, eds. University of Texas Press, 2017.

“Nawal el Saadawi.” in Fifty One Key Feminist Thinkers. Lori J Marso, ed. Routledge, 2016.

 “Activists, Lobbyists, and Suicide Bombers: Lessons from the Palestinian Women’s Movement.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. 32 (2): 2012.

“Afterword,” in Queer Politics and the Question of Israel/Palestine solicited for a special issue of GLQ: Gay and Lesbian Quarterly 16. 4. 2010.

“Palestinian Women’s Disappearing Act: The Suicide Bomber Through Western Feminist Eyes,” in Nation, Gender, and Belonging: Arab and Arab American Feminist Perspectives. Eds. Rabab Abdel Hadi, Evelyne al Sultani, and Nadine Naber. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2010

(co-editor). Comparative Literature Studies 47.4 (2010). Special issue: "Arabic Literature Now: Between Area Studies and the New Comparatism."

"Bearing Witness: The Politics of Form in Etel Adnan's Sitt Marie Rose." Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 14.3 (2005): 251-63.

"Between Complicity and Subversion: Body Politics in Palestinian National Narrative." South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003): 745-70; repr. (with afterword) in Diversifying the Discourse: Florence Howe Award for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship, 1990-2004. Ed. Mihoko Suzuki and Roseanna Dufault. New York: Modern Language Association, 2006. 288-307.

 “Writing the Difference: Feminists’ Invention of the ‘Arab Woman’ Interventions: Feminist Dialogues on Third World Women’s Literature and Film. Ed. Pishnupriya Ghosh and Brinda Bose. New York: Garland, 1996. 185-211.

(co-editor). Etel Adnan: Critical Perspectives on Her Life and Art. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002.

(co-editor). Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers. New York: Garland, 2000.

The Factory Girl and the Seamstress: Imagining Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century American Fiction. New York: Garland, 2000.

Amireh, Amal. “Framing Nawal El-Saadawi: Arab Feminism in a Transnational World.” Signs: Journal of Women and Culture 26 (2000): 215-248.

Amireh, Amal. “Writing the Difference: Feminists’ Invention of the ‘Arab Woman’ Interventions: Feminist Dialogues on Third World Women’s Literature and Film. Ed. Pishnupriya Ghosh and Brinda Bose. New York: Garland, 1996. 185-211.

Courses Taught

ENGH 202: Readings in Middle Eastern Literature

ENGH 305: Dimensions of Writing and Literature

ENGH 308: Theory and Inquiry

ENGH 400 (Honors Seminar): Postcolonial Bodies: The Fantastic, the Spectacular, and the Real

Arabic 325: Arabic Literature: Major Authors

ENGL 418: Cultural Construction of Sexualities

ENGL 328: Introduction to Cultural Studies

ENGL 349: Global Voices: Representing Islam

ENGL 360: Arab and Arab-American Writers

Engl 414 (Honors Seminar): Gender and Race in World Literature

ENGL 665: Texts in Global Contexts: Representing Islam

ENGL 685: Postcolonial Fiction

ENGL 660: Women and War

ENGL 663: Arab Women Writers

ENGL 665: Postcolonial Body Politics 

ENGL 675 Feminist Theory and Criticism

ENGL 685: Narrating the Nation

ENGL 665: Middle Eastern Literature: Major Issues

Engh 665: Gender and Sexuality in Literature of Middle East and North Africa

CULT 814: Theories of Gender and Sexuality

CULT 820: After Colonialism

Study Abroad Program: Egypt: Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization

Recent Presentations

"Heroic Contestations: Palestinian Masculinities in Post Oslo Literature." Middle East Studies Association, New Orleans, November 16, 2019. 

“Challenging Representations: Visualizing Palestinian Women.” Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.” Georgetown University. October 6, 2018.

“Naila and the Uprising: Palestinian Women on Screen.” Georgetown University, October 3, 2018.

“Walking the Minefields: Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East.” Virginia Tech University. March 25, 2015.

“Gender and Culture in the Middle East.” National Council on US-Arab Relations. Washington DC. July 15, 2014.

“Of Heroes and Men: The Crisis of Masculinity in the Post-Oslo Palestinian Narrative,” given at Rethinking Palestine Workshop, at North Carolina State University, Chapel Hill, November 30, 2012.

In the Media

“Now With Bill Moyer,” PBS, March 22, 2002; released as “NOW with Bill Moyers: Amal Amireh on Life in the Occupied West Bank,” Films for the Humanities and Sciences. 2004. (27 minutes).

MLA Radio program " What's the Word?: On Hanan al Shaykh's The Story of Zahra (recorded November 2004).               

“The Marc Steiner Show: Super Bowl Half-Time Controversy and TV Decency Standards,” WJHU, Baltimore Public Radio –Baltimore, Feb. 3^rd, 2004.

Dissertations Supervised

Adila Hanieh, Rearticulating the Aesthetic and the Nationalist: The Un-decidable Politics of Contemporary Palestinian Artistic Practices, 2015.(VISIT)