Gendered Reincarnations

Abstract This essay analyzes Arab American writer Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters (2001) at the intersections of gender, nation, and religion by redirecting attention to a minor character of the novel, the protagonist’s ostracized and reincarnated Druze sister, Lamia. Situated within a theoretical framework of transnational feminist theory and scholarship, this article redefines and expands critical theorizations of trauma, memory, and transnational studies by examining key questions, such as, How does trauma carry and manifest for reincarnated Druze lives across time and space? What does it mean for a Druze woman to be reincarnated in one body and nation yet remain deeply connected to another? What happens when traumas, particularly for Druze women, are silenced and oppressed? In attending to these questions, this essay reveals how Lamia provides a compelling example of the political and social implications of Druze women crossing borders of home, family, and nation.