“Rowing for Palestine,” Performing the Other: Suheir Hammad, Mark Gerban and Multiple Consciousness

Originally published in Alfred Hornung and Martina Kohl’s Arab American Literature and Culture (Universitatsverlag Winter, 2012), Bauridl’s essay offers a full discussion of a number of theoretical constructions regarding identity. In closely reading the words of both Hammad and Gerban, Bauridl challenges the simpler dualisms of bifurcated, Du Boisian approaches to identity, interpreting the complex reality of the “trans” in transnational identity, which seems more appropriately mobile and fluid and permeable, as are the experiences of “multiple consciousness” of those who try not to side with any specific racialized or politicized aspect of identity but to creatively negotiate all of them.