Torn between two Nationalist discourses: one Nubian while the other, an Arab/Egyptian one, the Nubian writer finds him/herself struggling between the representation of the Nubian experience entrenched in feelings of nostalgia, loss and memory of the pain of forced displacement and the exigencies of textual and rhetorical expression that seem to celebrate a more down to earth and inclusive sensibility. Thus, the presentations constitute an attempt to go beyond the dichotomy between the activist Nubian writer who views the Nubian Question as solely a human rights issue and Arab/Egyptian nationalists who consider the discussion of Nubians as a distinct ethnic group or minority a threat to Egyptian society’s homogeneity and hence consider it a national security issue.
The claim that Nubian writers wrote counter-narratives to the canonical master-narrative of the High Dam building during Nasser’s Egypt, although true in general, masks and indeed, oversimplifies a lot of the intricacies of the issue. Hence between an exclusivist Nubian position and an assimilationist discourse that seeks to silence difference, the presentations in this special session attempt to provide an alternative way of thinking about the Nubians and their unique human and literary achievements and offers guidance to reading “a culturally different text” to use Gayatri Spivak’s phrase; a reading that is done within the framework of a pluralistic discourse that allows for differences to be articulated freely. Moreover, the variety of writers and texts allows us to trace the trajectory of Nubian literature from its beginnings and the processes that have led to its development across generic boundaries together with its rich literary heritage that allows for a multiplicity of critiques that makes possible a reading of Nubian literature that crosses the borderlines between literature and gender, environmental and ecofeminist issues.
The three selected presentations seek to be representative of Nubian Literature. While Morsy’s presentation deals with the canonical first Nubian novel by the “father of Nubian literature”, Muhammed Khalil Qassim, Mazloum highlights the literary career and works of the most renowned woman writer of Nubian origin, Zeinab Alkordy. While Qassim’s seminal work is read as an archive of Nubian cultural loss, Alkordy widens the scope to deal with the Nubian issues within the wider frame of the nation’s socio-political reality. Radwan’s presentation, on the other hand, tackles one of the most controversial writers in Nubian literature; namely, Idris Ali. In contrast to the previous names, Ali’s scathing critiques of Egyptian society, including the Nubians themselves, make him stand out as one of the most passionate and angry voices in Nubian letters. While resenting his sense of frustration as a Nubian in the larger fabric of Egyptian society, he depicts in his works the politics of the female Nubian powerlessness and resistance to the unremitting injustices in her community.
Thus, the diversity of themes and tropes in Nubian literature reflects a hallmark of Nubian literary output which is generally marked by a common feeling of solidarity around the Nubian cause. However, this solidarity by no means reduces styles, voices and approaches to a flat or undifferentiated uniformity as the presentations will hopefully show. The array of critical approaches, from cultural and identity politics to ecofeminism, reflects this diversity despite an apparent agreed orientation as to how best the Nubian Question could be tackled both critically and theoretically.
Each speaker of the 3 speakers will take 18 minutes only.