tareef meeting one - how do you define queer?

queer muslim reading group - first meeting in november 2020

This could be in language, in expression, and embodiment.

Queer is constantly defined and redefined by who utters the term and in what context. For Muslims, this has been a variety of meanings (inclusion, subordination and exclusion.) Whether out of ‘appreciation’ or not, there have always been words in the Muslim world to define queerness. For our first meeting, we will engage with Ahmad Makia’s Treading Gulf Waters (2016) essay and an excerpt of Al-Suwaidi’s The Diesel. We will engage with cultural (and personal) narratives with how queer has been defined in the past and in the present. How has it been defined for you? What associations did you have with the term in the past and what associations do you have with it now?

Readings (download):

·      Ahmad Makia, Treading Gulf Waters (2016) (https://www.ibraaz.org/essays/142)

·      Thani Al-Suwaidi, The Diesel, Excerpt (Chapter 3) (2012)

Meeting time: Please fill out the Doodle poll, linked here, so we can meet end of November :)