Judith Caesar

Background

Judith Caesar was born in Jamestown, New York, United States, into the family of Gayle Thomas and Evelyn Robert Garrett.

Education

Judith received Bachelor of Arts at the Allegheny College in 1968. After that, she got Master of Arts in English at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1970. Finally, she earned Doctor of Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University in 1976.

Career

Caesar is a well-intentioned but disappointing narrator who fails in an attempt to extrapolate from her experiences teaching English at a university in the United Arab Emirates to a larger commentary on the Middle East. Despite 10 years in the region, she comes across as wide-eyed. Rather than the "muddle east," a term used by her expatriate friends in Saudi Arabia (where Caesar has lived), in the Emirates she finds "a kind of melded east": she marvels at women with abayahs (veils) and cell phones, and finds it surprising that she is able to sit "in a French-named coffee shop in an American-style shopping mall in Dubai drinking Italian espresso."

"Crossing Borders: An American Woman in the Middle East, written by Judith Caesar, is an account of the author’s experiences living and teaching literature in the Middle East in the 1980s. The book examines cultural differences between the West and the Middle East including marital customs, women’s dress, and the literary perceptions of her students. Caesar also comments on the manner in which television has shaped, and often distorted cultural understanding. According to a Kirkus Reviews critic, Caesar “takes readers to what she calls ‘a different world’ and helps them better understand and appreciate it.”

Judith is also a contributor to periodicals, including Antioch Review, Christian Science Monitor, Critique, Dalhousie Review, High Plans Literary Review, Kansas Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Nation, New York Times,

North Dakota Quarterly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Progressive, Wascana Review, and Washington Post. Caesar does not claim to be an expert, and some of her thoughts on travel in general are perceptive, though a little wooden. Her more observant anecdotes are about what it is to be an American abroad and how travel has made her more aware of issues in America — like poverty, misogyny and hate crimes — that she had previously been blind to.

Achievements

• Judith Caesar is highly famous as the author of book "Crossing Borders: An American Woman in the Middle East", written in 1997.

Works

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  • Writing Off the Beaten Track: Reflections on the Meaning of Travel and Culture in the Middle East (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East) 2002
  • Shaping Indian Diaspora: Literary Representations and Bollywood Consumption away from the Desi 2015
  • Crossing Borders: An American Woman in the Middle East (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East) 1999

Politics

Judith is a Democrat.

Views

Caesar successfully interweaves her students' comments on the Western books she teaches to shed light on both the Middle East and Western assumptions. But her persistence in examining and questioning Western and Middle Eastern cultures, and her believable embrace of some of the latter's elements and people, are what remain in mind.

Quotations: “My interest is in cultural understanding and the ways in which the literature of one’s culture is read and understood in another, on how where we have lived and what we have read shape who we are.”

Membership

Judith is a member of Modern Language Association.

Connections

Judith married a college professor Mamoun Fandy on April 11, 1987.

Father:

Gayle Thomas Garrett

Mother:

Evelyn Robert Garrett

Spouse:

Mamoun Fandy