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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><i><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic'>Please join us…<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=6
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:22.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=6
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:22.0pt'>NADIA GUESSOUS<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Monday, February 14<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>4pm<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>MIT, 16-220 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Tragic
Moderns: The Problem of Tradition in <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Leftist
Feminist Thought in Contemporary <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Morocco</st1:country-region></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>When Moroccan leftist
feminists narrate their life stories and talk about formative influences in
their lives, many recall the influence of a “traditional” and pious
father figure who was just and egalitarian, and who inspired their commitment
to and struggle for gender equality. If this positive invocation of an enabling
tradition is noteworthy for how consistently it recurs in the life stories of a
cross-section of Moroccan leftist feminists, it is equally notable for how
dramatically it disappears and is displaced by a notion of tradition as
obstacle to women’s emancipation and progress. In this paper, I
juxtapose invocations of the “traditional, pious but egalitarian”
father figure with that of “the failed and disappointing leftist husband
who claims to be modern but is in fact traditional” in order to
denaturalize the feminist repudiation of tradition and think about the demands
of modern, progressive subjectivity. I argue that the tragedy of leftist
feminist subjectivity lies in the fact that it is predicated on locating the
possibility of women’s progress and feminist politics in the repudiation
of the very tradition that makes it possible in the first place. This paper is
based on two years of field research among founding members of the feminist
movement in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Morocco</st1:country-region></st1:place>
whose activism emerged out of their immersion in and subsequent disenchantment
with the Moroccan left in the 1980s. By taking feminist constructions of
tradition as an object of inquiry, this paper seeks to contribute to a
non-teleological study of feminist thought and politics, and to the
anthropological study of secular and progressive subjectivity. </span></font><font
size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>Nadia Guessous is Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor, as well as
Director of Graduate Studies at the <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Hagop</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Kevorkian</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType>
for Near Eastern Studies at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">New
York</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.
She is currently finishing her PhD in Anthropology at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Columbia</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
under the direction of Lila Abu-Lughod. In addition to
working on her dissertation entitled “Genealogies of Feminism: Leftist
Feminist Subjectivity in the Wake of the Islamic Revival in Contemporary
Morocco,” she has also published a short monograph entitled “Women
and Political Violence during the Years of Lead in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Morocco</st1:country-region></st1:place>” (2009, the Moroccan
Advisory Council on Human Rights). <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Bookman Old Style"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><font
size=3 color=navy face="Bookman Old Style"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Bookman Old Style";color:navy'>Amberly Steward<br>
Senior Administrative Assistant<br>
Anthropology<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">77 Massachusetts Avenue</st1:address></st1:Street><br>
Bldg. 16-267<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">MA</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode w:st="on">02139</st1:PostalCode></st1:place><br>
p) 617.253.3065<br>
f) 617.253.5363 </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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