Aspects of multiculturalism in Mohja Kahf's E-mails from Scheherazade.

Multiculturalism as a term has recently been used to denote the celebration, acknowledgment and promotion of cultural differences. It is fundamentally defined as political and symbolical recognition of minority cultures, histories and traditions. The theory is thoroughly inspired by liberal ideas of human rights and equality. The aim of this paper is to analyse Mohja Kahf's collection E-mails from Scheherazad through the lens of multicultural concepts. Equality, belonging, identity and recognition of differences are key concepts of multiculturalism which will be explored through Kahf’s depiction of her Arab roots and heritage. A reading of Kahf’s poems will investigate how the poet negotiates Arab American identity and how she envisions multicultural societies. In her poetry, she re-conceptualizes the Arab identity, particularly the Arab Muslim woman in a pursuit to change western negative orientalist attitudes. Achieving knowledge construction about the Arab identity, illuminating its major qualities with representations that balance wronged stereotypical images, building bridges of cross-cultural understanding, reducing prejudices against Arabs and initiating dialogue between cultures are main concerns in Kahf’s poetic vision. Kahf’s poetry deals with ethnicity, gender and cultural diversity in America and hence it is representative of multicultural ideals particularly acceptance of difference, shared humanity and connectedness of cultures.