Lebanese Subversive Folktales: Najla Jraissaty’s Pearls on a Branch
Nicol Hall 406, Beirut campus and via Webex
The Department of English and Creative Arts of LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences cordially invites you to attend the following presentation as part of the Departmental Brown Bag Lecture Series:
Lebanese Subversive Folktales: Najla Jraissaty’s Pearls on a Branch
The lecture will be headed by Dr. Luma Balaa, associate professor of English Studies at the Department of English and Creative Arts.
Author Najla Jraissaty made it her mission to compile oral stories that had been passed down by Lebanese women from generation to generation. This paper focuses on the telling of these local tales as a form of oral performance, highlighting the resilient, intelligent, powerful women who serve as protagonists in these stories.
Drawing on Jack Zipes’ notion of fairy tales as an art of subversion with a civilizing mission, Joan Riviere’s notion of “womanliness as a masquerade,” and Terry Castle’s argument that female disguises in literature are liberating, Dr. Balaa contends that Najla Jraissaty’s Pearls on a Branch tales display subversiveness through multiple strategies such as feminist revisions, satire, sexual innuendo and female disguise.