Personal Info
- Country of residence: United States
Information
Randa Jarrar (b. 1978) is an American university professor at California State University in Fresno, currently in absence.
CV
Randa Jarrar was born in Chicago to an Egyptian and Greek mother and a Palestinian father. She was raised between Kuwait and Egypt until the second Gulf War in 1991, when her family moved to the United States again, and settled in the New York area when she was 13 years old. Jarrar studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence University, holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Middle Eastern Studies, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.
She teaches undergraduate writing, creative writing, and Arab American literature.
“California State University in Fresno is majority-minority,” she says. The majority of my students are black: Latin Americans, Asian Americans, and Muslim Americans. They are the first generation in their family to be college students. Or they are the children of migrant workers. Or they work full time while raising their children.”
criticism
Jarrar wrote an article expressing her opinion called “Why can I not tolerate the white woman who dances the belly dance?” It was published in Salon in 2014. In this article, Jarrar said that she feels that women who dance belly dance are culturally appropriating and “browning the face.” Her comment was widely criticized; "Maybe telling people they can't work in a field because they have the wrong skin color or the wrong background is... oh... I don't know what to call it... If there were just an adjective we would use it to mean 'telling people that they should do nothing, because of their race or origin.'»
The writer for The Atlantic magazine, Connor Friedersdorf, pointed out historical errors in Jarrar's arguments, citing an academic source: “With regional differences, it seems that something like belly dancing was known around the Mediterranean and undoubtedly flourished in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean before the advent of the Arabs in the seventh century.” .»
Novelist and illustrator J. and Lou Wilson writes in Jarrar's defense: "When you're dancing on a stage with a belt and calling yourself 'Alia Selim' and getting compliments, while the women whose name is really Alia Selim are confining themselves to a more exotic name like 'Allie' and they wonder Whether their tone is too harsh, or whether their headscarves are looked upon suspiciously, or whether children at school make fun of their children, hear me: you are exercising your great privilege.”
Jarrar wrote an article after her first article, entitled "I still can't stand the white woman who dances the belly dance."
On April 17, 2018, upon the death of former first lady Barbara Bush, Jarrar called her an "amazing racist" and bragged that she would "never be fired" for her inflammatory speech because she had proof-of-professional status at California State University in Frasno. "I'm glad the sorceress is dead," Jarrar said in response to the condemning comments. She was widely criticized, and her tweets can no longer be seen, as her account is now private. The university's president, Joseph Castro, responded to the public outcry, saying, "Professor Jarrar's expressive views and comments clearly run counter to the basic principles of our university, including respect and sympathy for those with opinions different from ours."
Achievements and Awards
awards
2004 Million Writers Award for Best Short Story Online
2007 Hopwood Award for Best Novel
2009 Arab American Book Award
2016 Story Prize Spotlight Award
2017 American Book Award
source
- Years in active
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