Surreal Corporeality and Abjection: The Roles of the Female Body in Egyptian Surrealist Paintings between 1938-1950

This dissertation will examine the leitmotif of the female body in Egyptian surrealist paintings by artists working between the late 1930s and 1950s in Cairo. It draws on the critical approaches of feminist theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Barbara Creed... More

This dissertation will examine the leitmotif of the female body in Egyptian surrealist paintings by artists working between the late 1930s and 1950s in Cairo. It draws on the critical approaches of feminist theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Barbara Creed as well as the Freudian uncanny to examine the portrayal of female bodies, and interrogate the representation of women in Egyptian surrealism through a feminist and psychoanalytical lens. My specific aim is to investigate the way in which the female body has been used as a site of protest and insurrection against the hegemonic social and political order of Egyptian society. This dissertation comprises of three chapters: firstly, an overview of the political, social, and religious contexts of Egyptian surrealism, its formation, ideologies, and eventually its demise. This is followed by an examination of the Freudian concept of the uncanny (das Unheimlich) and Julia Kristeva’s abjection in relation to the representation of wome Less