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Impassive Modernism in Arabic and Hebrew Literatures UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Against the Flow: Impassive Modernism in Arabic and Hebrew Literatures A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Shir Alon 2017 © Copyright by Shir Alon 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Against the Flow: Impassive Modernism in Arabic and Hebrew Literatures by Shir Alon Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Gil Hochberg, Co-Chair Professor Nouri Gana, Co-Chair Against the Flow: Impassive Modernism in Arabic and Hebrew Literatures elaborates two interventions in contemporary studies of Middle Eastern Literatures, Global Modernisms, and Comparative Literature: First, the dissertation elaborates a comparative framework to read twentieth century Arabic and Hebrew literatures side by side and in conversation, as two literary cultures sharing, beyond a contemporary reality of enmity and separation, a narrative of transition to modernity. The works analyzed in the dissertation, hailing from Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, and Tunisia, emerge against the Hebrew and Arabic cultural and national renaissance movements, and the establishment of modern independent states in the Middle East. The dissertation stages encounters between Arabic and Hebrew literary works, exploring the ii parallel literary forms they develop in response to shared temporal narratives of a modernity outlined elsewhere and already, and in negotiation with Orientalist legacies. Secondly, the dissertation develops a generic-formal framework to address the proliferation of static and decadent texts emerging in a cultural landscape of national revival and its aftermaths, which I name impassive modernism. Viewed against modernism’s emphatic features, impassive modernism is characterized by affective and formal investment in stasis, immobility, or immutability: suspension in space or time and a desire for nonproductivity. The impassive literary forms unearthed in the dissertation propose a host of metaphors for an alternative politics grounded in passivity rather than activism, and in weakness rather than force. Chapter One, “There Is No Event Whose Mark Has Not Gone before It,” explores the difficulties of the Arabic or the Hebrew text to be read as modern. I demonstrate how Arabic writer Mahmud al-Masʿadi and Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon stage encounters between Orientalist and literary modes of readings in their mock-classicist texts, and envision a timeless, universal literary realm in which literary periodization plays no role. Chapter Two, “Scratching at the Surface: Predicaments of Settlement and the Poetics of Disgust,” concerns the politics of settlement in the novel al-Jabal (The Mountain) by Egyptian Fathi Ghanem and in the story “ʿAtzabim” (Nerves) and the novel Shkhol ve-khishalon (Breakdown and Bereavement) by Hebrew writer Yosef H. Brenner. It identifies an impassive mode of settlement in the works of both authors, embodied in the gesture of scratching, and countering models of productive settlement within a national context. Chapter Three, “State Time: Gendered Genres of the Everyday in Sonallah Ibrahim and Yishayahu Koren,” identifies an anti-evental aesthetic in the work of both authors, which dismantles literary and historical logics of liberation and radical rupture. Chapter Four, “Impassivity: Resistance to Analysis in Post-Oslo Palestine” examines iii two impassive genres developed in the works of Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman and writer Adania Shibli in relation to crisis ordinariness: the boring joke and the frustrating snapshot. iv The dissertation of Shir Alon is approved. Eleanor Kaufman Aamir Mufti David N. Myers Gil Hochberg, Committee Co-Chair Nouri Gana, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... vii Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................. ix Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One .................................................................................................................... 35 “There Is No Event Whose Mark Has Not Gone before It:” Between Orientalist and Literary Typological Readings in S. Y. Agnon and Mahmud al-Masʿadi Chapter Two .................................................................................................................... 65 Scratching at the Surface: Predicaments of Settlement and Y. H. Brenner's Poetics of Disgust Chapter Three ............................................................................................................... 104 State Time: Gendered Genres of the Everyday in Sonallah Ibrahim and Yishayahu Koren Chapter Four ................................................................................................................. 152 Impassivity: Elia Suleiman's and Adania Shibli's Resistance to Analysis in Post- Oslo Palestine Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 188 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 192 vi Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of numerous individuals and institutions. This project was funded by generous support from the Mellon Foundation, the UCLA Skirball Program in Modern Jewish Culture, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies and the Program in Sephardic Studies, UCLA Graduate Division and the Department of Comparative Literature. I am thankful for the opportunity to consider the global scopes of this project at the Institute of World Literature Summer Workshop in Lisbon, and to engage with a community of scholars at the Yale Seminar on Modern Hebrew and Jewish Literatures as the final loose ends came together. I have also benefited from presenting various incarnations of this project at the American Comparative Literature Association, the Association of Jewish Studies, the African Studies Association, UC Berkeley, Hong Kong University, and UT Austin. I owe a special thanks to my patient and supportive committee members: Eleanor Kaufman, whose consistent enthusiasm and rigor are an inspiration, made sure I do not allow myself intellectual shortcuts. Aamir Mufti, who taught me not to fear risky comparisons and radical claims, and gave me an important key at the very last moment. David N. Myers introduced me to time’s different narratives but reminded me repeatedly that history is not only about telling stories. Nouri Gana provided guidance in modern Arabic literature and pointed criticism when it was needed. I am particularly grateful to Gil Hochberg, who remained enthusiastic for this project throughout. Our conversations, and particularly her ability to extract brilliant thoughts from a hodgepodge of ideas, have been invaluable as this project took shape. Many thanks to my shadow cabinet, the friends who read and offered thoughts on parts of this manuscript: Melissa Melpignano, the only dancer who can go against the flow, Danielle Drori, who brainstormed with me over long phone calls, master editor Zen Dochterman, and Alexander Jabbari, who came in late and stuck by me till the end. I also want to thank the faculty at UCLA who offered inspiration during my studies: Ra’anan Boustan and Michael Cooperson, who had made it so difficult to finally “become modern,” Sarah Stein, Todd Presner for his generosity, Kirstie M. McClure, and Arne de Boever. The members of the Hevruta at The Hebrew University extended encouragement when the research was at an embryonic stage: I am particularly grateful to Reut Ben Yaakov, Dina Berdichevski, and Amos Noy. I owe more than I could ever say to the community sharing the experience of graduate school with me: Will Clarke, the best neighbor, Helga Zembrano, Robert Farley, Jenny-Marie Forsythe, Suleiman Hodali, Omar Zahzah, Levi Thompson, Rebecca Lippman, Ethan Pack, Alexei Novak, Sina Rahmani, Duncan Yoon, Yuting Huang, Viola Ardeni, Emily Drumsta, and Amanda Apgar. I am so glad you were there. To my surrogate family spread around the world: Nasia Anam, who inspired me to love LA, Fatima Burney, Noga Malkin, Elik Elhanan, Nitzan Keynan, Albert Diaz, Orit Gat, Molly Suber Thorpe, it is good to know I have a home wherever you are. Finally, to my true, irreplaceable family, who are always too far away: my grandparents, Shula and Oded Mozes, whose love is so large it is tangible. To my incredible siblings, Tamar, Ayelet, and Omri, you keep growing astoundingly brighter. And to my parents, Yizhar Alon and vii Tal Alon-Mozes, who taught me a love of learning, travel, and adventure, and who might regret that they did, but I am grateful and admiring of them because of it every day. viii Curriculum Vitae Shir Alon EDUCATION Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature, UCLA, expected 2017 M.A. in Comparative Literature, UCLA, 2013 B.A. in Comparative Literature (summa cum laude), Columbia University, 2009 TEACHING AND RESEARCH FIELDS Comparative Literature; Literary and Critical Theory Modern Hebrew, Arabic, and Francophone Literature and Film History of the Modern Middle East Postcolonial Studies; Transnational Modernisms PUBLICATIONS • “Decolonizing Judaism: Barbarism
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