Understanding the Middle East… A Series of Talks by The Global Sisterhood

The Global Sisterhood is honored to present a series of conversations with the women of the Middle East. Our intention is to inform, inspire and engage women from other countries to understand the beautiful culture that is evolved throughout the Middle East. There is much unrest in this area of the world, but at the same time the Middle East countries have a rich culture with an intriguing history that we can all learn from. We want to speak with powerful women from these countries so that we may better understand one another and in turn, begin to create positive solutions to the issues we face as women globally.

This is our first show of the series, and we are excited to have spoken with Professor Sahar Abdel- Hakim. She is a professor of Cultural Studies at Cairo University.

Sahar Abdel-Hakim is Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. Among her research interests, cultural theory, women studies, travel studies, postcolonial studies and translation. She is particularly interested in cross-cultural relations.

Along with some of her friends and colleagues at the university she founded WMF (Women and Memory Foundation), an
Egyptian NGO that is interested in rewriting the history of Arab women by way of implementing what was silenced and written out of mainstream history. This is an endeavor that aims at setting the historic record straight and hence empower contemporary women by retrieving their history.

She is also a founding member of ASTENE (Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East), based in UK. Her work there focuses on studying the relations established through the encounters between Arabs and westerners and how their diversity and hence, the future potential, will generate a better understanding and communication across cultures.

She studied at the Cairo University, Egypt and Oxford University, UK. In 2009-10 she was Fulbright Scholar at NYU, USA. She also taught at Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt, Austria. She held the position of Vice President of GEBO (General Egyptian Book Organization), Egypt’s largest publisher. Currently she is one of the editors of Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, produced by Francis Taylor.

We are honored to have spoken with Professor Sahar to open a dialogue among women throughout the world about issues that affect all of us on this great Earth.