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This coming Monday at 4 pm in @UMBCLibrary, join us for a conversation with @scryptkeeper @SusanDarraj and @AliaMalek moderated by @UMBC_GWST Professor Mejdulene Shomali for our second #HumForum 
We are getting started with our second event of the semester. If you want to see upcoming events, visit dreshercenter.umbc.edu
Our moderator is Dr. Mejdulene Shomali of @UMBC_GWST. This event is the third in a series of events that seek to provide a space for Arab and Arab American voices to be showcased and heard.
Our first writer is @SusanDarraj, author of “A Curious Land: Stories from Home.”
Journalist @AliaMalek is our second writer and author of “The Home that Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria.”
Our final writer is @scryptkeeper, author of “Field Theories.”
Each of the writers are reading short passages from their work and then Dr. Shomali will lead them in conversation. A recording of the readings will be made available on our website.
Shomali: I invited these different writers because they represent different genres and different perspectives.
Darraj: I consider my fiction to function as a mosaic as well as way to explore intersectionality. A straight Palenstinian man will have a different perspective from a dark skinnes bisexual Palenstianian women.
Bashir: I have a lot of opinions about genre and I don’t really think about it. With regards to audience, I think of my writing as having a conversation with people, including myself. I don’t learn what I think about something until I write about it.
Malek: My work is a bit more literal as I am a journalist. You are expected to fact check things in nonfiction that doesn’t happen in the fiction genre. Nonfiction can be a bit vulturistic as you are interpreting a life that is not your own.
Darraj: Even in fiction, there is a burden of representation. Some people have tried to use my book as a sociological representation of all Palenstinians. This is why I write as a mosaic in order to represent various perspectives.
Malek: Arabs and Muslims have not gotten a fair shake in terms of representation. My goal is to find people who are complicated and render them with all their complexities. Seeing them in their fullness is whats real.
A shoutout from @scryptkeeper to @warsan_shire: “You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole.”
Bashir: When you put together Black, American, and Islam - you get one type of narrative. It’s not my narrative, which is often swept under the rug. When you think about Black Muslims, you are confronted with the idea that it doesn’t fit your box of what a Muslim looks like.
Bashir: Somalis are considered Arab; does this mean we are not African? We are always framed through a lens that is not ours.
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