Writing Women into History: Social Collectives in and around Early Syrian Women’s Periodicals

 

Vivienne Schommer’s dissertation traces the social history of women’s periodicals published between Beirut and Homs from 1909 to 1939. In examining the social and political functions of these periodicals, it reads their history as a collective one, because they were formative to a moment of increased collectiveness and political sensibility that brought together upper- and, increasingly, middle-class Syrian women, before mass mobilisation for the women’s movement in the 1940s. 

It traces how these periodicals conceptualised notions of collectiveness, and how these understandings were mirrored in social collectives in- and outside of the material space of the periodical.

Using network analysis and conceptual history and drawing on a large corpus of periodials, letters, and autobiographies, this research shows that Syrian women’s periodicals put multiple and fluid social collectives up for discussion, while simultaneously positioning themselves as part of them. These span from local intellectual circles, emotional and physical communities around the periodicals, to networks of women from Syria to the diaspora, and global women’s movements. It thus contributes to growing bodies of work that place Arab women as social theorists, and that tell a story of Nahdawi social theory beyond the predominant nationalist frame. 

 

Vivienne received her MA from the University of Leipzig. She is a reseach associate in the project Bibliotheca Arabica in Leipzig. 

First Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Florian Zemmin

Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag