The Women and Memory Forum (WMF) is organizing an interactive online seminar entitled
“Selected Feminist Readings in Contemporary Literature and Islamic Heritage” to be held via Zoom
on Sunday, 29 September 2024, from 11:00 AM and 03:00 PM (local Cairo time). The webinar is
organized within the framework of the WMF project Feminist Readings in Arab Cultural
History.
The seminar is divided into two sessions:
1. “Reading the Provisions for Women’s Issues in Islamic History” delivered by Dr. Omaima Abu-
Bakr and Dr. Hoda al-Saadi.

2. “Imaginations and Emotions in the Archive: Rereading Canonical History from a Feminist
Perspective” delivered by Dr. Hoda Elsadda.

The event targets participants:
 from the Arab region
 of all genders
 with priority given to applicants with experience in research work.
To maintain space for active discussion and interaction, please apply via:
https://forms.gle/KpX1RL47QUnLNiWx8 before 16 September 2024.

Meet the Presenters
–Omaima Abu-Bakr is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, and a
founding member of the Women and Memory Forum. She currently serves as the Chairwoman of
the WMF’s Board of Trustees. She specializes in Medieval Sufi poetry and comparative English and
Arabic studies. Her research interests include spiritual literature, women sufism in Islam and
Christianity, religious knowledge from a feminist perspective, women in the history of Islam,
women and gender issues in Islamic heritage and contemporary Islamic discourses, and the Qur’anic
interpretations. She has academic publications in English and Arabic Medieval poetry and literature,
the development of religious discourses on/about women, and Islamic feminism.

–Hoda al-Saadi holds a PhD in Islamic History and lectures at the American University in Cairo. She
is a founding member of the Women and Memory Forum.

–Hoda Elsadda is a feminist activist, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo
University, and a founding member of the Women and Memory Forum. She previously worked as a
Professor of Contemporary Arabic Studies at Manchester University (2005-2011), an Associate
Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World in the United Kingdom, and a
visiting researcher at George Town University (2014-2015). Her research interests include gender
studies, comparative studies, and oral history. Her publications include Gender, Nation, and the Arabic Novel: Egypt (1982-2008), translated into Arabic by Hala Kamal, and published in 2020 by
Egypt’s National Council for Translation. She also edited Oral History in Times of Change: Gender,
Documentation, and the Making of Archives, in Cairo Papers in Social Science Vol. 35, No. 1,2018.