Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Date of Graduation

5-8-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Department of History

Advisor(s)

Timothy J. Fitzgerald

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi

Pia Antolic-Piper

Abstract

Both in its contemporary journalistic milieu and in recent secondary scholarship, al-Fatah (1892-1894) has been widely recognized as the first Arabic women’s periodical. This magazine has similarly been credited with ushering in the era of the Arabic female press during the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. However, al-Fatah has received little attention as a magazine in and of itself. An analysis of al-Fatah helps to nuance the nahda cultural movement and its literature as more than male-dominated voices and authorship. This thesis explores how al-Fatah laid foundations for a female press by facilitating communication between editors and readers. The magazine helped build a female literary network, and empowered women to stake claims in the public sphere. Though the editors of al-Fatah wished to remain apolitical, and made assertions to this effect, I argue that this magazine was, in fact, extremely political and aimed to advocate for female education and the advancement of women more broadly.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.