- This event has passed.
Writing An Arab Illness Narrative: Head Above Water Shahd Alshammari, in conversation with Mara Mills
February 15 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Thursday, February 15 2024 from 12-1pm EST
Register here
Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness book cover. A woman lays with her eyes closed, facing up towards the sky. She is immersed in pink, orange, and white circles, which live on about 2/3 of the book cover. In all caps in a white bolded type, Shahd Alshammari’s name is at the very top center. The book title is in the same type until the semicolon, where it then switches to a pink that matches some of the circles.
Please join us for Dr. Alshammari’s reading from Head Above Water, one of the first disability memoirs from the Gulf region, with a follow up discussion on disability in literature and the role of illness narratives by Arab women.
Head above Water is an intimate, philosophical memoir by Shahd Alshammari, a woman marked “ill” by society and a lifelong reader, student, and teacher. Alshammari explores disability, displacement, and belonging—not only of the body, but of culture, gender, and race. Head Above Water was longlisted for The Barbellion Prize and has been referred to as “an intimate and layered portrait of disabled womanhood.” – Kirkus (starred review)
Headshot of Shahd Alshammari, an Arab woman smiling widely at the camera. Shahd has black curly shoulder length hair; on the right side her hair is behind her ear, which has a pearl earring with a silver circle dangling from it. She is wearing large black square framed glasses, a pinkish lipstick, a white jacket, and a white collared button down underneath. She is in front of an out-of-focus library.
Photo credit, Dima Assad
|
Shahd Alshammari is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian author and academic. She is the author of the books Notes on the Flesh and Head Above Water, as well as numerous other academic publications and papers. Most recently, she is the co-editor of Gulf Women’s Lives: Voice, Space, Place (University of Exeter Press, 2024). Her areas of research include illness narratives, disability studies, and questions of identity and language in the Arab world. |
Event is free and open to the public.
ASL and live captions will be provided.
Please include accessibility needs as they relate to the event in the registration, or email msf440@nyu.edu.
Register here
Co-Sponsored by the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU Department of English Disability Studies & Advocacy Group and 19WSN.