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Copyright by Rachel Elizabeth Green 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Rachel Elizabeth Green certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Towards an Ethics of Intersubjectivity: Affective Textures of Empathy in Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film Committee: _________________________________________________ Karen Grumberg, Supervisor _________________________________________________ Tarek El-Ariss, Co-supervisor _________________________________________________ Hannah Wojciehowski _________________________________________________ Yoav Di-Capua _________________________________________________ Pascale Bos Towards an Ethics of Intersubjectivity: Affective Textures of Empathy in Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film by Rachel Elizabeth Green Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 In memory of my grandfather Martin Siegel, (1927-2016), z"l Who read every thesis until this one; Who would see novel connections and elegant solutions everywhere he laid his eyes; Whose example taught us the art of pushing the envelope, and whose love convinced us we were seaworthy vessels. Here we go. לזכר מיין זיידן מארטין (מנחם-מענדל) סיגעל (1927 — 2016), ז"ל וואס ער האט געלייענט יעדן טעזיס אחוץ דעם איצטיקן; וואס ער האט געכאפט נייע פארבינדונגען און עלעגאנטע באשיידן ווו נאר ער האט א קוק געטאן; וואס ער האט אונדז געדינט ווי א מוסטער ווי מע לערנט זיך אויס די קונסט פון אריבערגיין די אנגענומענע ראמען, און וועמענס ליבשאפט האט אונדז אלעמען איבערצייגט, אז מיר זענען שיפן וואס טויגן צו שווימען איפן וואסער. געגאנגען ! (Many thanks to Itzik Gottesman for the Yiddish translation) Towards an Ethics of Intersubjectivity: Affective Textures of Empathy in Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film by Rachel Elizabeth Green, Ph. D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 SUPERVISORS: Karen Grumberg and TareK el-Ariss Comparative scholarship of Israeli and Palestinian literatures has posited various forms of a relational literary space, often predicated on implicit hopes for empathy. While not disavowing these hopes, per se, this dissertation taKes empathy itself as a starting point for a critical appraisal of the ethics and aesthetics of intersubjectivity. Analyzing Hebrew and Arabic literary and cinematic worKs from both within and beyond the geographical/epistemological spaces of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this dissertation is positioned at the intersection of comparative readings of Hebrew and Arabic, on one hand, and Empathy Studies on the other. WorKs considered include Ḥanān al-Shaykh's Story of Zahra and Hūdā Barakāt's Disciples of Passion (Lebanon), Ibrāhīm al-Kūnī's The Bleeding of the Stone (Libya), Sa‘ūd al-Sanʻusi's The Bamboo Stalk (Kuwait), Yoel Hoffmann's The Book of Joseph and Shira Geffen's Self Made (Israel), as well as as well as S Yizhar's "Khirbet Khizeh," Emīl Ḥabībī's "Pessoptimist," and Ghassān Kanafānī's "Returning to Haifa." This dissertation first argues that the Question of Palestine, sui generis, played an outsized role in shaping the post-1948 aesthetics of empathy in Hebrew and Arabic literature and film writ large. In dialogue with the conflict, some worKs in Hebrew tended towards an ethic of shooting and crying (yorim ve-bochim), a position of collective victimization, while some in Arabic tended towards an ethics of commitment (iltizām) and resistance (muqāwama), or an externalization of aggression in the belief that action would lead to resolution. Such an understanding gestures towards the related yet divergent v histories of emotion of Zionism and Arab Nationalism, respectively. However, it also renders visible the myriad ways in which subsequent authors and filmmaKers in both linguistic spheres have come to resist the proscription of empathy by reclaiming the intersubjective. While the Middle East has long factored as a site of extreme conflict in the Metropolitan imagination, Empathy Studies as a field has paid surprisingly scant attention to the region's cultural production. By reading three distinct affective textures of intersubjectivity, including frightful, chastened, and ambivalent, this dissertation seeKs to move the field of Empathy Studies beyond binaries of pro-empathy and anti-empathy, opening it up to considering the many affective textures of the intersubjective. Such an opening further informs and is informed by developments in the post-Arab Spring (post- 2011) cultural spheres in Israel and the Arabic-speaKing world that have rejected the ideological and emotional binaries of an earlier generation. vi Towards an Ethics of Intersubjectivity: Affective Textures of Empathy in Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 Statement and Structure of the Argument .....................................................................................1 Working Definitions ................................................................................................................................ 3 Primary Theoretical Lenses ................................................................................................................. 9 Interlocutors I: Empathy Studies, World Literature and the Specter of Orientalism ................................................................................................................................ 16 Interlocutors II: Empathic Affect, Middle Eastern Literature and the Theoretical Imperative .................................................................................................................................. 23 Establishing Divergent Aesthetics of Empathy in Yorim ve-Bochim and Iltizām/Adab al-muqāwama ........................................................................................................................... 27 Innovations and Chapter Breakdown ........................................................................................... 35 Chapter One: Violence and Frightful Intersubjectivity in Ḥanān al-ShayKh's Story of Zahra (Ḥikāyat Zahra) and Hūdā BaraKāt's Disciples of Passion (ahl al-Hawā)........... 38 Establishing a Comparative FrameworK ..................................................................................... 38 The Affects of Empathy Meet the BreaKdown of the Human: The Story of Zahra ...... 44 The Frightful Echo Chamber: Disciples of Passion .................................................................... 56 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 62 vii Chapter Two: Chastened Intersubjectivity and the Intergroup Poetics of Affective Porousness/Impermeability in Ibrāhīm al-Kūnī's Nazīf al-Ḥajar (The Bleeding of the Stone) and Yoel Hoffmann's Sefer Yosef (The Book of Joseph) ............................................ 64 Establishing a Comparative FrameworK ..................................................................................... 64 Mystical Experience, Ethical Response and Chastened Intersubjectivity as Theoretical Opening ............................................................................................................... 72 Affective Porousness, the ChildliKe and Multidirectional Memory .................................. 76 Provocative Juxtapositions as Spaces of Ethical Possibility ................................................ 86 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 99 Chapter Three: Filiation as Promise and Peril: Ambivalent Intersubjectivity in Shira Geffen's Self Made (Boreg) and Sa‘ūd al-Sanʻusi's The Bamboo Stalk (Sāq al-Bambū) ................................................................................................................................ 100 Establishing a Comparative FrameworK ................................................................................... 100 Basic Contours ...................................................................................................................................... 103 Of Ethical Subjectivities and Porous Corporealities ............................................................ 110 Filiation, Hospitality and the Inescapable Shared Horizon .............................................. 117 The Ambivalence of Interlanguage .............................................................................................. 126 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 135 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 138 WorKs Cited....................................................................................................................................... 142 viii Introduction Statement and Structure of the Argument In conversation with comparative scholarship of Hebrew and Arabic literatures on the one hand, and the field of Empathy Studies on the other, this dissertation considers the aesthetics and ethics of intersubjectivity in literary and cinematic works in Hebrew and Arabic from 1948