{"id":21166,"date":"2015-01-07T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/?p=21166"},"modified":"2019-12-09T09:40:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T17:40:35","slug":"nwws-language-food-panel-discussion-writing-diana-abu-jaber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/nwws-language-food-panel-discussion-writing-diana-abu-jaber\/","title":{"rendered":"NWWS: The Language of Baklava, a panel discussion with and about Diana Abu-Jaber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/nwws-language-food-panel-discussion-writing-diana-abu-jaber\/language_baklava_web\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-21168\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-21168\" src=\"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Language_Baklava_WEB-208x300.jpg\" alt=\"Language_Baklava_WEB\" width=\"176\" height=\"254\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Language_Baklava_WEB-208x300.jpg 208w, https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Language_Baklava_WEB-104x150.jpg 104w, https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Language_Baklava_WEB.jpg 271w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 176px) 100vw, 176px\" \/><\/a>UO Knight Library<br \/>\nBrowsing Room<br \/>\n1501 Kincaid St.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cDiana Abu-Jaber\u2019s vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with talks of Lake Ontario cookouts and feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously evoked meals, complete with recipes, in turn illuminate the two cultures of Diana\u2019s childhood\u2014American and Jordanian\u2014while helping to paint a loving and complex portrait of her impractical, displaced father who, like many an immigrant before him, cooked to remember the place he came from and to pass that connection on to his children. <\/em>The Language of Baklava<em> invites us to sit down at the table with Diana\u2019s family, sharing unforgettable meals that are as much about \u2018grace, difference, faith, love\u2019 as they are about food.\u201d \u2014from the publisher<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This panel focuses on the memoir <em>The Language of Baklava<\/em> by American Book Award\u2013winning author <strong>Diana Abu-Jaber.<\/strong> Abu-Jaber will read selections from her work, with commentary from UO scholars of various disciplines. This event will be followed by a reception.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Panelists:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Moderator: Michael Hames-Garc\u00eda, director, Center for the Study of Women in Society, and professor, UO Department of Ethnic Studies.<\/li>\n<li>Michael Fakhri, UO School of Law, and the Environmental and Natural Resource Program (co-leader of the <a href=\"http:\/\/enr.uoregon.edu\/frp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Food Resiliency Project<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/melissahart.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Melissa Hart<\/a>, UO School of Journalism and Communication; author of the memoirs <em>Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood<\/em> (Seal Press, 2009) and <em>Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family<\/em> (Lyons, 2014).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/intldept.uoregon.edu\/profile\/ajoya\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Angela Joya,<\/a> UO Department of International Studies, specializes in the Middle East and North Africa and has done fieldwork in Jordan.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/theatre.uoregon.edu\/faculty\/michael-malek-najjar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Najjar<\/a>, UO Department of Theatre Arts (specializing in Arab-American Theatre and Performance, Directing, Playwriting, Contemporary Theatre and Performance). Professor Najjar is working on a screen adaptation, on spec, of Abu-Jaber&#8217;s novel <em>Crescent<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The fourth annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/events-2\/2014-nwws\/csws-northwest-women-writers-symposium-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cOur Daily Bread: Women\u2019s Stories of Food and Resilience\u201d<\/a><\/strong> will take place on the University of Oregon campus and the downtown Eugene Public Library on Mother\u2019s Day weekend, May 7 \u2013 9, 2015.\u00a0 Diana Abu-Jaber (<em>Crescent<\/em>; <em>Birds of Paradise<\/em>) is the keynote author. For a full schedule go to: <a href=\"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/events-2\/2014-nwws\/csws-northwest-women-writers-symposium-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/events-2\/2014-nwws\/csws-northwest-women-writers-symposium-2015\/<\/a>. All events are free and open to the public, although workshops are limited in size and will require registration during April and early May.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Diana Abu-Jaber<\/strong> was born in Syracuse, New York to an American mother and a Jordanian father. When she was seven, her family moved to Jordan for two years, and she has lived between the U.S. and Jordan ever since. Life was a constant juggling act, acting Arab at home but American in the street. The struggle to make sense of this sort of hybrid life, or \u201cin-betweenness,\u201d permeates Abu-Jaber\u2019s fiction.<span id=\"more-19774\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Her first novel, <em>Arabian Jazz<\/em>\u2014 considered by many to be the first mainstream Arab-American novel\u2014won the 1994 Oregon Book award and prompted Jean Grant of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to say, \u201cAbu-Jaber\u2019s novel will probably do more to convince readers to abandon what media analyst Jack Shaheen calls America\u2019s \u2018abhorrence of the Arab\u2019 than any number of speeches or publicity gambits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her second novel, <em>Crescent<\/em> (W.W. Norton 2003), which was inspired by Shakespeare\u2019s Othello, is set in contemporary Los Angeles and focuses on a multi-cultural love story between an Iraqi exile and an Iraqi-American chef. Lush and lyrical, suffused with the flavors and scents of Middle Eastern food, spiced with history and fable, <em>Crescent<\/em> is a sensuous love story as well as a gripping tale of commitment and risk. It won the PEN Center Award for Literary Fiction, the American Book Award, and has been published in eight countries to date.<\/p>\n<p>Again using cuisine as the fulcrum of her narrative, Abu-Jaber\u2019s next book\u2014the culinary memoir <em>The Language of Baklava<\/em> (Pantheon, 2005) chronicles her own experiences growing up in a food-obsessed Arab-American family during the 1970\u2019s and 80\u2019s. Each chapter is developed around one of her father\u2019s traditional Middle Eastern recipes. <em>Entertainment Weekly<\/em> described <em>The Language of Baklava<\/em> as being \u201cas delectable for its stories as for its accompanying recipes\u2026Diana Abu-Jaber concocts a feast of words and images from her Arab-American experience\u2026[she] recounts a textured immigrant tale filled with heartfelt dishes\u2026Rich, dense, and flavorful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abu-Jaber\u2019s book, <em>Origin<\/em> (WW Norton, 2008), a page-turner set in her childhood hometown of Syracuse, explores issues of memory and identity. <em>Origin<\/em> was named one of the best books of the year by the <em>LA Times<\/em>, the <em>Chicago Tribune<\/em>, and <em>The Washington Post<\/em>.\u00a0 Her most recent book is <em>Birds of Paradise<\/em> (WW Norton, 2011).<\/p>\n<p>Sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society. Cosponsors include Eugene Public Library; Oregon Humanities Center; UO Division of Equity and Inclusion; the UO Departments of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies, English, and Ethnic Studies; UO School of Journalism and Communication; University Health Center; UO Libraries; Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics; and the ASUO Women\u2019s Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UO Knight Library Browsing Room 1501 Kincaid St. \u201cDiana Abu-Jaber\u2019s vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with talks of Lake Ontario cookouts and feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/nwws-language-food-panel-discussion-writing-diana-abu-jaber\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,36,173],"tags":[56,283,273,158],"class_list":["post-21166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-events","category-women-writers","tag-csws","tag-diana-abu-jaber","tag-northwest-women-writers-symposium","tag-uo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21166"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31352,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21166\/revisions\/31352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}