Shiahrazad's Daughters
Graduation Date
Fall 1999
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
First Reader
Leslie Ross, PhD
Second Reader
Patricia Dougherty, OP, PhD
Abstract
The following project is the fruition of a number of long-standing interests developed both in undergraduate and graduate studies. While pursuing my undergraduate degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, I focused primarily upon Literature and Women’s Studies. During the course of my studies for a Masters in Humanities at Dominican College in San Rafael, I continued to focus on the Middle East by writing term papers for many of my classes on Middle Eastern themes relating to the class as a whole. When the time came for me to choose a topic for my master’s thesis, I endeavored to create a project that could incorporate all of my areas of interest. It was no easy task to figure out a way to include not only Middle Eastern History and Women’s Studies, but also Art and Literature. With some pondering ' came up with the following project: a rewriting of a story from the Thousand and One Nights featuring a female hero which I would then illustrate and accompany with an historical introduction. I intended to create a book that would be ready for publication and suitable for audiences aged eight to twelve. As feminist fairy tales from around the world have recently been popularized, I hope to contribute to the genre with a Middle Eastern tale that could help dispel the myth of the shrouded helpless Middle Eastern woman. After reading through the many tales in the Nights, I found my perfect female hero in the very last story I read: The Story of Jullanar of the Sea. Re-writing the tale was a far more demanding task than I ever imagined, and illustrating it even more time-consuming, but the results are, for me, very rewarding. To complete the project that at first seemed so unwieldy has been a real gift, and one that I could not have accomplished without the help and support of Dr. Leslie Ross, Sr. Patricia Dougherty, and my mother, Amina Al-Jamal.