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The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’S Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification

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The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’S Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2018 The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’s Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification. Rima Sadek University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Sadek, R.(2018). The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’s Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification.. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/4766 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’s Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification. By Rima Sadek Bachelor of Arts The Lebanese University, 2003 Master of Arts Balamand University, 2011 _________________________________________ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2018 Accepted by: Alexander Beecroft, Major Professor Stephen Sheehi, Major Professor Meili Steele, Committee Member Jie Guo, Committee Member Stephanie Mitchem, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Rima Sadek, 2018 All Rights Reserved. ii Dedication For my parents iii Acknowledgments I am deeply thankful to my advisors, Dr. Alexander Beecroft for his thorough guidance, feedback and encouragement throughout the process; Dr. Stephen Sheehi for his valued critique, thoughts and comments. I would like to thank Dr. Meili Steele, Dr. Jie Guo and Dr. Stephanie Mitchem for their willingness to work with me and support my research. The ideas expressed in this dissertation originated in the classes I took with each and every one of them as graduate student. I would like to thank the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of South Carolina for their generous support and funding without which this dissertation could have never been accomplished. I am thankful for the friends and colleagues I met in the Comparative Literature Program and the LLC Department. We laughed, drank, partied, watched movies and supported each other throughout this long and often times stressful journey. I am forever indebted to my parents for all the things they have done for me. I learned the love of stories, literature, philosophy and knowledge from my late uncle, Sadek, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams. Marya, Yara and Reem were and still a source of joy in my life. iv Abstract Arab women’s literature continue to receive considerable critical attention by scholars in East and West. However, through my focus on three novels in this dissertation, The Cinnamon’s Aroma (2008) by Samar Yazbek, Brooklyn Heights (2011) by Miral al-Tahawy and It’s Called Passion (2009) by Alawiya Sobh I hope to contribute a more holistic understanding of these works by highlighting features not fully explored in previous scholarship. I concentrate on the creative means of struggle and resistance to the entrenched structures of oppression locating sights of potential hope and emancipation. I point out the ways in which these texts subvert and present a new articulation of ossified social and cultural truth value notions on gender and sexuality. This subversion and resignification is done through exploring the relationship between concrete transgressive acts and narrative construction. Subversive and alternative acts pertaining to sexuality and gender are ephemeral and transient if not transmuted into a structured, narrative form. In The Cinnamon’s Aroma I analyze how the sexual relationship between two female characters is presented as an act of subversion and resistance to patriarchal oppression. Brooklyn Heights addresses the need to re- conceptualize female gender identity. It’s Called Passion discusses sexuality and war in rural and urban settings stressing the significance of fiction and narrative construction in any subversive and emancipatory project. I also discuss the focus on the body as contested site upon which sexuality, violence and oppression are discussed. The dissertation also explores the temporal and spatial mobility of traditional patriarchal v structures and gendered oppression. I explore the unifying elements binding these novels in addition to their diversity. I complicate my study utilizing feminist theory, gender and sexuality and theory of narrative construction. vi Table of Contents Dedication ......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. iv Abstract ...............................................................................................................................v List of Transliteration Symbols ...................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Alternative Sexuality and Subversion in The Cinnamon’s Aroma .................65 Chapter 3: Brooklyn Heights, Mobility, Identity and Resignification ..............................97 Chapter 4: Telling Stories, Writing Fiction and transforming Reality in It’s Called Passion .........................................................................................127 Chapter 5: Conclusion......................................................................................................178 Works Cited ....................................................................................................................184 vii List of Transliteration Symbols th ث h ح kh خ z ذ sh ش d ض t ط ʿ ع gh غ q ق a ة ʾ ء viii Chapter 1 Introduction Since the rise of the Arabic novel in the early twentieth century, Arabic fiction in general, and the novel in particular have become an increasingly important platform to discuss social, political and national ideologies ranging from questions of national identity to poverty, urbanization, migration, corruption and gender and sexuality among others. Arab female writers took advantage of this new and rising literary form to present counter-narratives that emanate from an attempt to level the ground of inequality experienced by women in modern Arab societies. These voices have progressed and developed over time, accompanying cultural, social, political and economic shifts in the Arab world and elsewhere, especially the West. Here, women speak as loudly as men, shaping collective and individual experiences. The issue of gender and sexuality is one constant throughout these developmental stages and shifts. Sexuality, understood as a physical experience as well as a larger cultural concept and narrative has remained a predominant topic along with the accompanying gender identity issues. Gender and sexuality have mainly been discussed within the framework of gendered oppression, gendered suppression and gendered violence. This order of objectification and marginalization is regarded an essential feature of a widespread patriarchal structure deeply entrenched in the cultural, social, political and economic apparatuses of the public and the private domains. 1 In this introduction, I first introduce the three works treated in this dissertation and their authors and some shared themes that link them and the criteria behind their selection. Then I provide an analysis for the theoretical framework I am employing discussing mainly the theory of narrative construction, gender and sexuality in a structuralist, post-modern sense. This is followed by a brief overview of the history of the modern Arabic novel in general, and the feminist novel in particular. Then I move on to explore the secondary literature most relevant to my topic. In the following section I define the key terms I am using employed in this dissertation, mainly gender, sexuality, subversion and resignification. Finally, I provide a brief chapter’s summary. Storytelling, writing, fiction and the imaginative realm were and are still employed by Arab women writers to challenge and defy the order of oppression and hegemony. Imagination and fiction as used in this dissertation do not allude to fantasy or to the unreal; to the contrary, they represent the possible. Imagination and fiction are the space where these women writers envision ways of resistance, hope and emancipation. Oral and written narratives constitute the realm of representation which retrospectively constitute what we call the real world in a Lacanian, Freudian and Derridian sense. Imagination is the space of argumentation, the space of defying predominant orders of patriarchal hegemony and the space of envisioning avenues of hope and emancipation. The realm of representation created through oral and written accounts and stories is the link between the existent or real, and what could become, the imaginative and fictional. Both worlds, real and imaginative are constituted through narrative representation with the only difference that one is lived, exist and the other’s existence is envisioned, aspired for through
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