Dr. Andrea Zittlau was CGDS’s first Visiting Professor. Dr. Andrea, with a travel grant from the University of Rostock, Germany, where she is assistant professor. visited us for for ten days. During this time, Dr. Andrea offered a feminist creative writing workshop at AUIS on Saturday, 23 September, with 11 people from the university and the community in attendance. The group created spoken and written collaborative creative pieces. She also taught three class sessions in the gender minor, met with community organizations, conducted a workshop with IDP/Refugee adult students, visited the Sulaimani Women’s Mental Hospital, and participated in other campus and community events. Upon return to her university, she collaborated in “Family Feminism and Feminist Futures” with AUIS. In the summer of 2020, she and Mr. Rawan asked students to write a paragraph about a role model, someone they know and admire, and a short piece of speculative fiction, a scene in a world in which feminist goals have been achieved. Because all voices are important to them, they decided to do only very little editing to preserve the variety of language, positions, and experiences which are all equally relevant to begin a conversation about gender roles. By bringing together voices from two different cultural contexts, they highlighted specific aspects for each of these contexts that otherwise would have remained hidden.
