Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, 2017.
This dissertation explores how gendered depictions of violence, illness, and
disability in Arab cinema complicate notions of trauma and memory in the Arab
experience. Each chapter engages with different filmic cases produced in the last two
decades, focusing on works by Mohamed Mouftakir, Amr Salama, Hala Lotfy, Azza El-
Hassan, and Mohanad Yaqubi, among others. The first chapter examines the connections
between childhood trauma and gender binaries in a Moroccan context. The second
chapter interrogates the representation of HIV/AIDS via predominantly female
protagonists in Egyptian cinema from the 1980s until the present day, as well as the
ethics of documenting disability and illness. The following chapter continues this
discussion by exploring how Egyptian filmmaker Hala Lotfy depicts the burden of
affective labor. The last chapter explores how two Palestinian documentaries examining
the legacy of a missing Palestinian film archive dialectically reconstruct it through
resurfaced archival materials, as well as the testimonies and interventions of Palestinians.
This dissertation locates the meaningful spaces of regeneration and alternative
narratives that contemporary filmmaking practices offer in the Arab world. I focus
specifically on how feminist filmmakers define, renegotiate, and decolonize regional
archives through filmmaking practices and social activism. Examining several
contemporary films about the lived experience of Arab women, this project demonstrates
how certain films mobilize micronarratives to excavate counterhistories from the
margins.
