Editor’s Comment

The JMEWS 11:3 cover image by Hayv Kahraman (Detail Decagram 2) evokes a refusal to be objectified but also the layers that block possibilities for fully seeing, whether one looks from the inside out or from the outside in. It offers the illusion of wholeness, which is often mapped onto women’s bodies. This volume wraps up a three-issue initiative in which authors affiliated with autonomous “feminist formations” throughout the region discussed their priorities and challenges at a particularly tumultuous historical moment. They wrote in English, French, Farsi, and Arabic. Reading them together one can discern threads of continuity and difference. The conflicts and challenges are stark, but so is the beauty and creativity, as in Kahraman’s constellation of corporeality, dissection, and architecture. The “feminist formation” essays communicate energy, commitment, and layers of complexity that exceed the hegemonic available frames for seeing and understanding.