Jacinthe Ahmed Assaad

Visiting Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature, Oberlin University

Fields of Interest

20th Century Arabic Citizen and nation Comparative Literature Contemporary Egyptian Cinema Culture Drama Feminisms Film/Cinema French Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Modernism Plague writing Poetry and Poetics Representations of (female) bodies

Biography

Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of Washington, 2015

M.A. English and Comparative Literature, American University in Cairo, Egypt, 2006

My dissertation, entitled Feminine Plural: Representations of Vulnerabilities and Vulnerabilities of Representations - Women in Contemporary Egypt, explores, through a critical examination of four films, the intertextual connections between the representations of women and the use of the female figure in national discourse, especially in light of the recent political events. I ultimately challenge the narrative formation of a gendered nation by exposing the challenges and limitations it poses in articulating (and encompassing) the identities of female citizens.

My formal training is in Modernism and 20th century French literature. I am also interested in questions of transnational feminism(s), and how to incorporate global literature in the canons, both in my teaching and my research.

Besides being a scholar, I am also a poet.