Time bandits: Temporality and the politics of form in Palestinian womens life-writing

摘要

This article explores the complex relationships between textual form, time/temporality/history and oppressive structures of patriarchy and colonialism as they are manifested in Palestinian womens life-writing. It argues that questions of "the political" cannot be divorced from aesthetic issues in a context where national cultures are in the process of being (re)formed. Further, it argues that a focus on gender can produce more nuanced understandings of national(ist) narratives, helping to prevent their homogenization. Finally, it seeks to establish some commonalities and differences between this branch of Palestinian cultural production and both western (womens) life-writing and what has come to be defined as postcolonial literature. In suggesting that greater attention should be paid to Palestine within postcolonial studies, it also seeks to respect the important differences - historical, political and cultural - between Palestine and other regions more commonly addressed by the field.