Kvinnoforum takes this opportunity to invite you to a seminar entitled "Women, Culture and Society in the Middle East: Feminist Struggle and Quest for space" with Professor and Writer Evelyne Accad as main guest. Presentations and discussions will include issues pertaining to Middle Eastern women’s worldview, traditional framework, the influence of religion (with focus on Islam) and value system weighing on the definition of their identity, rights and feminist struggle within a cultural and literary perspective. In addition to issues pertaining to the status of Middle Eastern women in Europe, their identity, integration, and their legal and human rights.

Conference Programme:
09:00 - 09:15 Registration

09:15 - 09: 30 Introduction and General Presentation

09:30 - 10: 15 Documentary: Covered: The Hijab in Cairo, Egypt
By Tania Gama-eldin

10:15 -10:30 Coffee Break

10: 30 - 11:30 Guest Speaker:
Professor and Writer Evelyne Accad, Women’s Studies University of Illinois (USA)

Overview of Western and Eastern Feminist Theory

Talk and reading from two Works: “Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in Tunisia” and “The Excised”

11:30 - 12:00 Questions and General Discussion

12: 00 - 13:00 Lunch Break

13:00 - 14:30 Panel:
Professor and Writer Evelyne Accad, Women’s Studies, University of Illinois (USA)

Individual Rebellion and the Context of Culture: Arab Women Writers

Sherin A. Saadallah, Kvinnoforum - and Institute for International Education (IIE), Stockholm University

Islamist Women Writers and Counter Rebellion

Gufran Al-nadaf, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden

Presentation of ‘Yalla’ Report
Issues of Identity and Culture in a Swedish Context

Moderator: Bam Björling, Chairperson, KvF

14:30 - 15:00 Conclusions

Bionote speaker:
Evelyne Accad

Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon (Oct. 1943). Primary, secondary education in Beirut and two years at the Beirut College for Women (now the Beirut University College). B.A. from Anderson College in English Literature (1967); M.A. in French from Ball State University (1968) and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University (1973). Professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana since 1974 in French, Comparative Literature, African Studies, Women Studies, Middle-East Studies, and the Honors Program. In 1978 and 1984, she taught at the Beirut University College, and in the spring 1991, at Northwestern University.

Publications include: Blessures des Mots: Journal de Tunisie (Paris: Cote-Femmes, 1993, English edition, Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in Tunisia, Heinemann, 1996); Des femmes, des hommes et la guerre: Fiction et Realite au Proche-Orient. (Paris: Cote-Femmes, 1993, France-Liban Award, 1994); Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East (NYU Press, 1990); Coquelicot du massacre (with cassette of songs. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1988); Contemporary Arab Women Writers and Poets (Beirut: IWSAW, 1986); L'Excisee (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1982 and 1992, English translation, The Excised Colorado, Three Continents Press, 1989 and 1995); Montjoie Palestine! or Last Year in Jerusalem (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1980); Veil of Shame: The Role of Women in the Modern Fiction of North Africa and the Arab World. (Sherbrooke: Naaman, 1978, International Edicator's Award); thirteen chapters in books, fifty-seven articles and more than sixty book reviews.