DOCSLIB.ORG

Arab American Women's Poetry

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Arab American Women's Poetry Arab American Women’s Poetry: Violence and Boundaries in the Levantine Diaspora by Christina LaRose A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English and Women’s Studies) in The University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Evelyn A. Alsultany, Co-Chair Associate Professor Ruby C. Tapia, Co-Chair Assistant Professor Charlotte M. Karem Albrecht Professor Sidonie A. Smith Christina LaRose [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6209-0329 © Christina LaRose 2018 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my father, Daniel Clayton LaRose, and my teta, Najla Simon. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the University of Michigan for providing me with the financial support necessary to complete my doctoral studies. Specifically, I owe a debt of gratitude to the following sources: the Rackham Merit Fellowship, the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, the Community of Scholars Program, the Department of English Language and Literature, and the Department of Women’s Studies. I also wish to thank the Mellon Foundation for providing me with two public humanities grants. Many thanks to my wonderful dissertation committee who encouraged me and helped me to greatly improve my work: co-chairs Ruby Tapia and Evelyn Alsultany, and members Sidonie Smith and Charlotte Karem Albrecht. Thanks to Maria Cotera who generously gave of her time for a directed readings course in the Fall of 2013, and who served on my preliminary exam committee. Thanks also to current and former University of Michigan faculty and staff who supported, influenced, and encouraged me and my work: Lilia Cortina, Nadine Naber, Linda Gregerson, Leela Fernandes, Peggy McCracken, Walter Cohen, Amy Germain, Jan Burgess, Natalie Bartolacci, Emma Flores-Scott, and Dwight Lang. Thank you to Laura Schram for her assistance with my public humanities fellowships. I am grateful for experiences working at Rackham Development with Jill McDonough and Sheila Waterhouse, and at Michigan Publishing with Jason Colman and Meredith Kahn. Thanks to all my University of Michigan colleagues and friends for your iii companionship and support throughout this process. I am indebted to the Arab American literary and scholarly community, especially the Radius of Arab American Writers, Mizna: Prose, Poetry & Art Exploring Arab America, and the Arab American Studies Association. Many thanks to Hedy Habra, Lana Barkawi, Louise Cainkar, Leila Ben-Nasr, Marwa Helal, Jehan Mullin, and Eman Elshaikh. Thank you to the staff of the Arab American National Museum for their research support and encouragement. I would specifically like to thank Devon Akmon, Jumana Salamey, Matthew Jaber Stiffler, Kim Silarski, Lindsay Robillard, Dave Serio, Petra Alsoofy, Isra M. El-beshir, and Kirsten Terry-Miller. Thanks to my Purdue University Northwest colleagues, especially Rachel Holtz, James Darney, and Christine Fiorite, for their friendship and support. I am grateful to my professors who helped me to earn my M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Ohio State University: Lee Martin, Erin McGraw, Lee K. Abbott, and Michelle Herman, and to my many wonderful friends and colleagues there. I had a great undergraduate education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. I will always fondly remember Sid Bolkosky, beloved professor and former director of the Honors Program in which I was inspired and challenged. Thank you to Suzanne Bergeron for believing in me, for your good humor, and for your consistent support. Thank you to Maureen Linker, Lora Lempert, and Melita Schaum for their help and guidance. Thank you to Mrs. Susan Goodson, my sixth grade English teacher, and to my high school English teacher, Mr. Don Dziuk, both of whom encouraged my love of literature. Thanks to Carrie Landrum, Cheryl Phillips, Owen Cook, Alex Gonopolskiy, Paul Neamonitakis, Christy Patterson-Hamilton, the Covert family, and Kate Gomane for their enduring friendships and support over many years. Thanks to Latoya and Larry Gibbs for their friendship and encouragement. Thank you to my grandmother, Thelma, to my mother, Barbara, iv to my many wonderful aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings—Justin, Amy, Jonathan, and Ryan. I am grateful for my niece, Charlotte Rose, for all the laughter she brings me. And I can’t thank my dear husband enough for his extraordinary companionship, generosity, support, and love. v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF APPENDICES viii ABSTRACT ix CHAPTER I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..……..1 II. Arab Diasporas and Poetic Negotiations of Spatiotemporal Boundaries……………..…22 III. Rethinking Boundaries of the Human Subject: Relational Identity in a Post- Anthropocentric Era ……………………………………...…………………………………….68 IV. Childhood Epistemologies: Ethical Response to Violence in the Interstices of Arab-U.S. Boundaries……………………………………………………………………………..………113 V. Deterritorialized and Archival Poetic Imaginaries: Neoliberal Critique, Caring Labor, and the Boundaries of Gender Roles…………………………………………………………143 VI. Conclusion……………………………………..…………………………………………..185 vi APPENDICES 195 BIBLIOGRAPHY 207 vii LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX A. Topics of Arab American Women’s Poetry 196 B. Arab American Women Poets and Relational Identity 201 C. Themes in Arab American Women’s Poetry about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 203 viii ABSTRACT This dissertation fills a research gap: to date there has not been a published scholarly monograph exclusively about Arab American women’s poetry. The study focuses on an insufficiently explored textual corpus: women poets with heritage in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories) because this is the region from which most Arab Americans trace their ancestry. Analyzing the work of twelve Arab American women who published at least one full-length poetry collection, composed in or translated into English, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the dissertation takes as its source material poems from Etel Adnan, Naomi Shihab Nye, Nathalie Handal, Suheir Hammad, Mohja Kahf, Elmaz Abinader, Hedy Habra, Marian Haddad, Laila Halaby, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Deema Shehabi, and Hala Alyan. By using poems as case studies, the dissertation explores how Arab American women poets represent the problem of violence and articulate peace-building strategies in the Levantine region and transnationally. This research discusses how Arab American women poets address the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, the subsequent French and British colonial interventions, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Lebanese Civil War, the Gulf War, and the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. These poets, writing in the diasporic afterlives of violent origins, often reflect on boundaries. A simple definition of a boundary is a line that marks the limit of something; limits can be physical, political, historical, temporal, embodied, behavioral, psychological, emotional, or spiritual. ix These poets evince a contemplative relationship to boundaries by illuminating how boundaries are reimagined by those who survived the traumas of violence and displacement. A contemplative relationship to boundaries does not create lawlessness or chaos but promotes considerations about how to improve the conditions of life. Although these poets or their ancestors experienced or witnessed acts of violence, these poets do not view themselves as victims, but as agents who contribute insights that benefit Arab Americans and a wider collective. These poets conceptualize the writing of poetry as a process that, through engagement with readers, results in healing from violence. Each chapter inquires how these poets claim agency because of diasporic displacement, and how they respond to violent conflicts in ways that renegotiate and reimagine boundaries. Chapter 1 observes that Abinader, Kahf, and Handal ponder the nature of boundaries, both spatial and temporal, and argues that these poets develop transnational Arab subject formations that both extend and modify central ideas of the 19th century Mahjar (migrant) literary tradition for late-twentieth and early twenty-first century audiences. The chapter also attends to how Handal engages with Samuel Huntington’s (1993) “clash of civilizations” thesis. Chapter 2 investigates how Shehabi, Halaby, and Adnan deliberate on the boundaries of the human subject by placing their poetry into dialogue with contemporary theorizing on identity and by highlighting their emphasis on relational identity. Chapter 3 questions how Abinader, Majaj, Nye, and Shehabi contemplate the boundaries of childhood through child characters and perspectives. In the process, the chapter examines how these poets’ work supports a critique of epistemic privilege. Chapter 4 seeks to understand how Abinader, Hammad, Alyan, Habra, Haddad, and Nye meditate on the boundaries of gender roles. Specifically, the chapter centers on x how these poets denaturalize neoliberalism and value caring labor as central to a post-neoliberal social order. xi CHAPTER I Introduction “there is no precision in traveling – it unweaves the body, invents its lines and directions” — Nathalie Handal, “The Traveler” from Poet in Andalucía (2012) The internecine war in Syria has brought international attention to the problems of Arab regional violence and the resulting displacement of populations. Although the Syrian refugee crisis began in 2011, mass migrations of people from the Middle East have been
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Middle Eastern Music and Dance Since the Nightclub Era
    W&M ScholarWorks Arts & Sciences Book Chapters Arts and Sciences 10-30-2005 Middle Eastern Music and Dance since the Nightclub Era Anne K. Rasmussen William and Mary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbookchapters Part of the Ethnomusicology Commons Recommended Citation Rasmussen, A. K. (2005). Middle Eastern Music and Dance since the Nightclub Era. Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young (Ed.), Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, And Harem Fantasy (pp. 172-206). Mazda Publishers. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbookchapters/102 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts and Sciences at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Book Chapters by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. B E L L .v C)ri enta ·l•i S.:I_I_ Transnationalism & Harem Fantasy FFuncling�orthe publication ofthis v\olume w\ as pro\Iv idcd in part by a grant from ✓ Ther Iranic a Institute, Irv\i ine California and b)y TThe C A. K. Jabbari Trust Fund Mazda Publisher• s Academic Publishers P.O. Box 2603 Co st a Mesa, CCa lifornia 92626 Us .S. A . \\ ww.mazdapub.com Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young All rights resserved. ' No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and re iews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Belly Dance: Orientalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Brazen (Spring 2011) Hollins University
    Hollins University Hollins Digital Commons Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Gender & Women’s Studies Newsletters Spring 2011 Brazen (Spring 2011) Hollins University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/brazen Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Brazen: Newsletter of the Gender & Women's Studes Department. Roanoke, Virginia, Hollins University. Spring 2011. This Newsletter is brought to you for free and open access by the Gender & Women’s Studies at Hollins Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters by an authorized administrator of Hollins Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. February 21, 2011 Volume IV, Issue 2 bra.zen Contemporary Metaphorical Representations of Arab Femininity by Emily Campbell, ‘12 Note: The following poems were inspired by and informed by various writings and artwork created by contemporary Arab women. Excès du Oiseau Fruit Unafraid femininity, and more- Fall, take the bruises but You can be shapeless, over, I found that these keep them beneath your can flow with the cur- pieces were in dialogue skin—be modest, hued rent, can hide behind with one another Inside this issue: in black and white things less dangerous regarding the same thematic conflicts; these rather than the blues than yourself—things Starting Smart at 2 I identify as and greens of peacocks. which would map you, Hollins Clean yourself, sweep confine you—but you confinement versus the soil from your cage; are a pomegranate, a movement, suppression On Being a Dance Artist 3 you cannot grow any- thing of flesh and color versus subversion, and thing in there (and what and wetness.
    [Show full text]
  • S1003186 Supervisor: John Bintlif Specialization: Classical and Mediterranean A
    Name: Eleni Christidou Stylianou Student number: s1003186 Supervisor: John Bintlif Specialization: Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology (Second Specialization: Archaeology of the Near East) University of Leiden Faculty of Archaeology Leiden 2012 1 To my father 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................6 1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................7 2. Historical Introduction......................................................................................................10 2.1 The Byzantine Empire................................................................................................10 2.1.1 The Emerging of the Byzantine Empire. Chronology......................................10 2.1.2 General Remarks..............................................................................................13 2.2 The Arab – Islamic World..........................................................................................14 3. Arab-Byzantine Literary Exchanges..................................................................................19 3.1 Conclusion.................................................................................................................24 4. Maritime Activities, Hostilities and Reconciliation in the Mediterranean......................27 4.1 Advanced Arab-Byzantine Trade Relations at the end of the tenth
    [Show full text]
  • The Fulla Doll, Identity, and Consumption in a Globalizing Arab World
    University of Alberta Boxes Fulla Fun: The Fulla Doll, Identity, and Consumption in a Globalizing Arab World by Lena O. Saleh A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Political Science ©Lena O. Saleh Fall 2013 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. For Ummi and Abbi: I love you both. ABSTRACT: This thesis uses the case study of the Arab-Islamic Fulla doll to examine the relationships among globalization, consumption and cultural identities. Beginning with the question of how cultural products like the Fulla doll come to exist, I argue that the Fulla doll serves as an example of the process of creolization whereby non-Western peoples mobilize local customs and beliefs to transform globally-distributted consumer goods, thus re-contextualizing and assigning new meanings to these goods. Through an analysis of thirteen animated Fulla doll advertisements, I argue that the Barbie doll’s ethnic, religious and gendered identity has been re-contextualized to transform her into an Arab-Muslim woman, the Fulla doll.
    [Show full text]
  • This Book Is a Compendium of New Wave Posters. It Is Organized Around the Designers (At Last!)
    “This book is a compendium of new wave posters. It is organized around the designers (at last!). It emphasizes the key contribution of Eastern Europe as well as Western Europe, and beyond. And it is a very timely volume, assembled with R|A|P’s usual flair, style and understanding.” –CHRISTOPHER FRAYLING, FROM THE INTRODUCTION 2 artbook.com French New Wave A Revolution in Design Edited by Tony Nourmand. Introduction by Christopher Frayling. The French New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s is one of the most important movements in the history of film. Its fresh energy and vision changed the cinematic landscape, and its style has had a seminal impact on pop culture. The poster artists tasked with selling these Nouvelle Vague films to the masses—in France and internationally—helped to create this style, and in so doing found themselves at the forefront of a revolution in art, graphic design and photography. French New Wave: A Revolution in Design celebrates explosive and groundbreaking poster art that accompanied French New Wave films like The 400 Blows (1959), Jules and Jim (1962) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Featuring posters from over 20 countries, the imagery is accompanied by biographies on more than 100 artists, photographers and designers involved—the first time many of those responsible for promoting and portraying this movement have been properly recognized. This publication spotlights the poster designers who worked alongside directors, cinematographers and actors to define the look of the French New Wave. Artists presented in this volume include Jean-Michel Folon, Boris Grinsson, Waldemar Świerzy, Christian Broutin, Tomasz Rumiński, Hans Hillman, Georges Allard, René Ferracci, Bruno Rehak, Zdeněk Ziegler, Miroslav Vystrcil, Peter Strausfeld, Maciej Hibner, Andrzej Krajewski, Maciej Zbikowski, Josef Vylet’al, Sandro Simeoni, Averardo Ciriello, Marcello Colizzi and many more.
    [Show full text]
  • Lebanese-Americans Identity, Citizenship and Political Behavior
    NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY – LOUAIZE PALMA JOURNAL A MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PUBLICATION Volume 11 Issue 1 2009 Contents Editorial 3 New century, old story! Race, religion, bureaucrats, and the Australian Lebanese story 7 Anne Monsour The Transnational Imagination: XXth century networks and institutions of the Mashreqi migration to Mexico 31 Camila Pastor de Maria y Campos Balad Niswen – Hukum Niswen: The Perception of Gender Inversions Between Lebanon and Australia 73 Nelia Hyndman-Rizik Diaspora and e-Commerce: The Globalization of Lebanese Baklava 105 Guita Hourani Lebanese-Americans’ Identity, Citizenship and Political Behavior 139 Rita Stephan Pathways to Social Mobility Lebanese Immigrants in Detroit and Small Business Enterprise 163 Sawsan Abdulrahim Pal. Jour., 2009, 11,3:5 Copyright © 2009 by Palma Journal, All Rights Reserved Editorial Palma Journal’s special issue on migration aims at contributing to this area of study in a unique manner. By providing a forum for non-veteran scholars in the field to share their current research findings with a broader public, Palma has joined hands with the Lebanese Emigration Research Center in celebrating LERC’s sixth anniversary serving international and interdisciplinary scholarly discourse between Lebanon and the rest of the world. The migration special issue owes its inception to a conversation between Beirut und Buenos Aires, in which Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous, an Austrian- American researcher at LERC, and the eminent Argentinean migration scholar, Ignacio Klich, developed the idea for a special migration issue and presented it to the LERC research team. This Libano-Austro-Iberian link laid the foundation for an exciting collection of articles, which I have had the privilege to guest edit.
    [Show full text]
  • Representa Tion of Places in Etel Adnan's in the Heart of the Heart Of
    124 INTERLITT ERA RIA 2020, 25/1: 124–141 ZARIF KEYROUZ Representa tion of Places in Etel Adnan’s In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country and Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz) LAURE ZARIF KEYROUZ Abstract. This article will take a close look at two books of Etel Adnan which are strongly tied to the representation of places. References to nature found in both books link the places she is physically present in to her inner-spaces. Additionally, the people she encounters in these locations also become elements with which she weaves different places together. In Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz), the notion of place is particularly enriched by the different qualities of the women she finds in each location, comparing the situation of women in the Orient and the Occident. The shadow of recent wars hangs heavy in the memories of Adnan as she travels between these different places in both books – the thought of which never abandons her. Keywords: places; maps; literature; art; symbols; nature; woman; war Introduction Etel Adnan is one of Lebanon’s most important contemporary writers and a prime example of the intellectual nomadism1 that defines much of Lebanese contemporary literature and art. Her tangled personal journey across several continents have found their way into every aspect of her writing, which docu ments not only her travels but also her emotions and ever-changing perspectives as seen through the lenses of the places and spaces she finds 1 Etel Adnan, a great nomad, has ventured to many places throughout her long life.
    [Show full text]
  • Lebanese Families Who Arrived in South Carolina Before 1950 Elizabeth Whitaker Clemson University, [email protected]
    Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 12-2006 From the Social Margins to the Center: Lebanese Families Who Arrived in South Carolina before 1950 Elizabeth Whitaker Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Whitaker, Elizabeth, "From the Social Margins to the Center: Lebanese Families Who Arrived in South Carolina before 1950" (2006). All Theses. 6. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/6 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FROM THE SOCIAL MARGINS TO THE CENTER LEBANESE FAMILIES WHO ARRIVED IN SOUTH CAROLINA BEFORE 1950 A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts History by Elizabeth Virginia Whitaker December 2006 Accepted by: Megan Taylor Shockley, Committee Chair Alan Grubb J.R. Andrew ii ABSTRACT The Lebanese families who arrived in South Carolina found themselves in a different environment than most had anticipated. Those who had spent time elsewhere in the U.S. found predominantly rural and predominantly Protestant South Carolina to be almost as alien as they or their parents had found the United States due partly to the religious differences and partly to the cultural differences between the Northeast, where most of them had lived for at least a few years after arriving in the United States, and the Southeast.
    [Show full text]
  • Mint Grows Through the Cracks in the Foundation: Food Practices of the Lebanese Diaspora in New England (USA)
    AMY E. ROWE DECEMBER 2008 Mint grows through the cracks in the foundation: Food practices of the Lebanese Diaspora in New England (USA) Food & Migration Workshop, SOAS, 2-3 Feb. 2009 Amy E. Rowe I. Introduction: (Lebanese) Mint in the (American) Landscape The house had been empty for a while, and it looked a little tired but we knew we could fix it up quite easily. It just needed a little TLC [tender loving care]. When we looked at the exterior of the property with our surveyor, that was when I first noticed the mint growing everywhere. It was running through the flowerbeds and even through the cracks in the foundation of the house, through the concrete! We knew immediately this must have been a Lebanese house at some point. Who else would have large plots of mint around here? We laughed at the hearty nature of the herb—it is so resilient! It will keep on growing despite having no Lebanese owners tending it. This gave us a good feeling about the place—we felt it gave us a connection. We bought the house the next day… (Fieldnotes, 30 Nov. 2005). This excerpt is from a conversation with Jean and Mike, a third-generation1 Lebanese couple about the house they had bought in Winslow, Maine in 2002. After Jean narrated the discovery of the mint, her husband Mike described that after buying the house they asked their Lebanese friends and family questions about the property. They learned that a first-generation Lebanese brother and sister from the Sarkis family had lived there many years before (both never married).
    [Show full text]
  • The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3 [1776]
    The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3 [1776] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • Toward an Arabic Modernism: Politics, Poetics, and the Postcolonial
    University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020- 2021 Toward an Arabic Modernism: Politics, Poetics, and the Postcolonial Alaa Taha University of Central Florida Part of the Arabic Language and Literature Commons, and the Arabic Studies Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020 University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020- by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Taha, Alaa, "Toward an Arabic Modernism: Politics, Poetics, and the Postcolonial" (2021). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-. 770. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020/770 TOWARD AN ARABIC MODERNISM: POLITICS, POETICS, AND THE POSTCOLONIAL by ALAA TAHA B.A. UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, 2019 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Summer Term 2021 © Alaa Taha 2021 ii ABSTRACT This thesis explores modernism’s temporality and location through the examination of Arabic modernism’s occurrence. In this thesis, I question whether the authenticity of modernism derives from its temporality period or its literary content while concurrently investigating several poems by Lebanese authors Kahlil Gibran and Nadia Tuéni and Syrian poet Adonis. Additionally, I trace Arabic modernism’s influence to the early 1900s-1910s to the conception of the Mahjar movement and the Pen League, an Arabic literary society consisting of Arabic immigrant writers.
    [Show full text]
  • ARABI E MUSULMANI D'america Scompigliare Le Carte Della
    ARABI E MUSULMANI D’AMERICA Scompigliare le carte della letteratura arabo-americana: un’analisi di gender e di genre Lisa Marchi* Quando nel 1999 Judith Butler pubblica negli Stati Uniti Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, si dichiara sicura di voler produrre “un ‘intervento’ provocatorio nella teoria femminista”1 con l’intento non di restringere, ma piutto- sto di ampliare il significato stesso di genere. È così che per intervento di Butler il genere diventa un trouble, vale a dire non una semplice categoria identitaria, né una mera questione aperta, ma piuttosto un guaio, una confusione, un fastidio- so e urticante disturbo che scompiglia il cosiddetto ordine naturale delle cose. È allo spirito provocatorio di Butler che guardo, mentre mi accingo a intervenire da una prospettiva di genere sulla traiettoria, tradizionalmente lineare e trionfa- listica, della storia della migrazione arabo-americana e della letteratura prodotta a partire da quell’esperienza migratoria. Qualcuno potrebbe chiedersi perché si renda necessario oggi rileggere la storia della migrazione e della letteratura ara- bo-americana proprio a partire dal libro di una teorica femminista statunitense ebrea. Ricordo che Butler, oltre a essere un’importante filosofa, è anche un’ebrea impegnata nell’attivismo politico. I suoi scritti e prese di posizione politiche per il riconoscimento del popolo palestinese, e più in generale per la realizzazione di una comunità politica globale più giusta, hanno prodotto delle trasformazioni radicali nel nostro modo
    [Show full text]