*Using gender to define the core of what makes us human creates huge contradictions: it requires us to define men and women as fundamentally different from each other and yet also as full human beings. – *Johnson, The Gender Knot, 58
Juha and Donkey
Just as women appear in limited and occasional historical events universally, so the popular Arab folktales of Juha the trickster portray his wife in a supporting and marginal role.
I am delighted to announce my latest Special Project, developing the first English anthology of Moroccan Malhun poetry, building on my PhD dissertation and fieldwork and time spent in Morocco on and off, over more than a decade. Mbarek Sryfi, poet and professor at The University of Pennsylvania, is co-translator. Growing up in Morocco, he is a long-term fan of Malhun. The NEA is helping to fund our work (details here).
