Arguably, although Edward Said’s Orientalism was published almost five decades ago, Muslimah or Muslim women have remained unseen and ignored in contemporary Western society, especially Anglo-American and British society. To question this invisibility toward marginal groups, especially Muslimah Americans and Muslimah British, this panel investigates how postcolonial Muslimah or Muslim women authors write their own transnational Islamic stories to make their experiences visible within the US, the UK, and beyond to contest white supremacy. This panel explores how Postcolonial Muslimah writers thematize the ideas of transnational Islamic writing by reimagining Western literature to question white domination in world literature and culture. In doing so, the writers allude to and reconstruct Western literature, such as Shakespeare’s and Sophocles’s, to undermine Eurocentrism and Orientalism in their English literary texts.

The rationale for organizing a session on transnational Islamic writing and postcolonial Muslimah writers is to contest US neo-imperialism linked to Israeli Zionism and British colonialism and to understand better how postcolonial women have suffered from the era of colonialism to the periods of neo-imperialism and Israeli colonization. This panel explores transnational Islamic writings in postcolonial Muslimah literary texts, exploring the struggles of postcolonial Muslimah to establish their individual and national freedom. Arguably, postcolonial Muslimah stories are seemingly excluded in women’s studies, which mainly expose white women’s perspectives, which mostly believe that the link between nature and women is symbolic instead of real as these postcolonial Muslimah have experienced every day since the eras of British empire.

This topic is related to existing scholarship, especially women's studies and postcolonial studies struggling to challenge white supremacy, US neo-imperialism, and Israeli Zionism. This panel focuses on how Postcolonial Muslimah decolonize both neo-colonialism in their homelands and white sovereignty by illuminating Muslimah transnational writing in their literary texts. The methodology arrayed, which encompasses close reading attached within historical, cultural, and, remarkably, religious contexts, is fittingly united with the subject matter. This session will operate for one hour and 15 minutes. We have four presenters who will speak for 15 minutes; the rest will be for 15 minutes for discussion and the Question and Answer.

Each presenter reveals how each Postcolonial Muslimah literary work enhances the character’s transnational Islamic identities in fighting against neo-imperialism and Israeli Zionism. These writings cover multiple genres, including fiction, historical fiction, memoir, poetry, and short story collections, to break white hegemony and Israeli Zionism in multiple aspects: economy, culture, history, and memory. Thus, each presenter engages with various studies, ranging from the bildungsroman, postcolonial, memory, ecofeminism, and Islamic studies to national history and trauma studies, to illuminate postcolonial Muslimah writers have participated in larger debates of global problems: neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism linked to Israel occupation in Palestine since 1946 and global capitalism rooted in white supremacy.

These panelists come from various cultures and nations, focusing on the ideas of transnational Islamic writings and postcolonial Muslimah literature, and the following are the details of each presenter.

Sirène Harb is a Senior Lecturer in English at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), where she teaches American and Comparative Literature.

Nada I. Tayem is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP).

Sennur Bakirtas is an assistant professor at Ataturk University, Türkiye.

Hasnul Insani Djohar is a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence (2023-24) at Southern Utah University and an Associate Professor of English and Head of the English Department at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University Jakarta, Indonesia.

I chose these speakers because they are experts in Postcolonial Muslimah Literature, as seen in their CVs. Each speaker will contribute to providing evidence of how each literary work reveals the struggles of transnational Muslimah identities within their homelands, such as Palestine, Pakistan, and Lebanon, and the host land, the US and the UK, through their various stories and experiences of being oppressed and occupied by US neo-imperialism linked to Israeli and British empires. Sirene investigates Hala Alyan’s and Etaf Rum’s works to reveal how Muslimah spaces, landscapes, and homes are visible within the Israeli settlements and beyond. Nada’s presentation evaluates the Lebanese’s trauma and collective memories of British and French colonization. Bakirtas examines how Shakespeare’s Hamlet was reimagined in Isabella Hamad’s Enter Ghost. Djohar evaluates how Sophocles’s Antigone was de/reconstructed in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire.