Between Banat

“Mejdulene Bernard Shomali’s Between Banat will shatter everything you ever imagined you wanted out of a queer archive. Rejecting hetero-Orientalist binaries, Between Banat creates an epistemology of ‘between’—a generative way of being, knowing, and desiring that constantly moves toward joyful freedom by sidestepping demands for legibility and authenticity. Theorizing intimacy outside of hetero- and homonormative frameworks, Between Banat is a long-awaited, lyrical love letter that invites us to forge collective, liberatory, queer Arab futures.” - Amira Jarmakani, author of An Imperialist Love Story: Desert Romances and the War on Terror

“In this engaging, astute, and necessary book, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali expands understandings of queerness and femininity by working through the expansive transnational category of Arab identity. Enlarging the scope of queer of color critique by adding new vocabularies and applying innovative methods of close reading to an interdisciplinary and intergenerational archive, Shomali makes an enticing set of arguments for thinking with Arab femme-ness.” - Amber Jamilla Musser, author of Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance

"This groundbreaking work charts new territory in gender studies. . . . Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals." - M. L. Russell, Choice

"[Between Banat] is an essential read for everyone who wants to understand the complexities of queer Arab lives, especially given the myriad restrictive discourses and violent realities that make it difficult to narrate and embody this complexity. . . . It asks us to dare to imagine and build a world in which racialized queer subjects do not simply survive but thrive." - Elif Sari, International Journal of Middle East Studies

"This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in SWANA sexuality, Queer sexualities, and the SWANA Region, especially within the context of feminist and queer knowledge production. Whether you specialize in sexuality studies, gender studies, feminist studies, Middle East studies, or if you work on the SWANA region or on sexuality from the Global South at large, Between Banat is a must-read that will undoubtedly enrich your academic perspective." - Maya El Helou, Untold Magazine

“This valuable contribution demonstrates the rich history nonnormative expressions of gender and sexuality in Arab culture, emphatically arguing that queerness is not a Western import, but rather a critical feature of Arab culture that can be read across Arab media." - Katherine Alissar Tannous, Gender, Place & Culture

"In her survey of the aesthetic archive, from Golden Era Egyptian films to contemporary publications and everything in between, Shomali elegantly puts forward a conceptual framework to uncover love and desire among women living under historically defined and ideological conditions. Indeed, her method of analysis is striking in its capacity to exhume queer traces and affective ruptures from historic erasure and does so with great care and loving attention to the subjects." - Dina Georgis, GLQ