Thesiss

This dissertation explores the images of the Middle Eastern and North African dancer, also known as raqisah sharqi, almeh, and belly dancer, and the role of Western and Eastern male artists in developing her persona. It argues that Jean-Léon Gérôme, Oscar Wilde, and Farid al-Atr…

Dance is a vital part of critical inquiry in the humanities and provides an ideal template for analyzing social power relations and the exclusion of women and the body from western epistemology. This dissertation conducts a comparative feminist analysis of representations of dan…

On national staging or in everyday life, the female dancing laborer exposes the larger workings of the monarchal nationalist modernity project in branding particular images of Jordan and its women - both at home and abroad. I argue that the choreographic discourse of national da…