Author : Marta Bosch
Release : 2016
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Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis Post-9/11 Representations of Arab Men by Arab American Women Writers: Affirmation and Resistance by : Marta Bosch
Download or read book Post-9/11 Representations of Arab Men by Arab American Women Writers: Affirmation and Resistance written by Marta Bosch. This book was released on 2016. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation provides an analysis of the representation of Arab American men in post-9/11 writings by Arab American women. This thesis contributes a new inquiry regarding Arab American literature in joining the subject of literature written by women and the study of Arab American masculinities. It delves into the construction (from both outsider and insider perspectives) of Arab American masculinities, at the same time as it expounds on the history of Arab (American) feminisms, placing Arab American women writers in a privileged space of contestation and critique in their fight against both sexism and racism. This dissertation wants to visibilize the nuanced depiction of Arab and Arab American men provided by Arab American women writers after 9/11, who have been informed by feminism since the 1990s. In their attempt to fight both sexism and racism, Arab American women provide ambivalent representations of Arab men that counter stereotypical discourses historically entrenched in the American psyche and also recurrent after 9/11. Furthermore, this thesis also intends to provide an analysis of fiction as a representation of reality, while also understanding literature as a potential conductor of change in cultural discourses. To do so, the dissertation is structured in four main parts which examine the context, reasons, and potential consequences of the specific portrayals of Arab American masculinities published by Arab American women after 9/11. The first chapter covers the historical vilification and racialization of Arab men in the United States, by taking on theories on biopolitics (Foucault), necropolitics (Mbembe, Puar), and monster-terrorist (Puar and Rai) in relation to the traumatic experience of September 11. The second deals with the discourses that aid in the social construction of Arab American identities and masculinities, with a special emphasis given to the theories of neopatriarchy (Sharabi), heterotopia (Foucault) and thirdspace (Soja, Bhaba). The construction of Arab American identities is also analyzed (David), as well as Arab American masculinities (Harpel). The third chapter examines the development and characteristics of Arab American feminisms (Hatem), as well as their influence to Arab American women writers. Finally, the fourth part takes on the theories from previous chapters and provides a literary analysis of the male characters in a group of selected novels published after 9/11. Those are: Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent (2003), Laila Halaby's West of the Jordan (2003), Alicia Erian's Towelhead (2005), Laila Halaby's Once in A Promised Land (2007), Frances Kirallah Noble's The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007), Susan Muaddi Darraj's The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007), Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home (2008), and Alia Yunis's The Night Counter (2009).
