عنوان

Writing Amrīkā: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature

Number

TL47978

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Writing Amrīkā: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Benjamin Lenox Smith

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Granara, William E.

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Harvard University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2014

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

257

Text of Note

Committee members: El-Rouayheb, Khaled; Granara, William E.; Naddaff, Sandra

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-33542-2

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Body granting the degree

Harvard University

Text preceding or following the note

2014

Text of Note

My dissertation, Writing Amrīkā: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature is an examination of this cross-cultural literary encounter primarily through fictional prose written in Arabic from the beginning of the 20^th century into the 21^st century. The texts studied in this dissertation are set in America, providing a unique entry point into questions about how Arab authors choose to represent Arab characters experiencing their American surroundings. While each text is treated as a unique literary production emerging from a contingent historical moment, an attempt is made to highlight the continuities and ruptures that exist in both the content and form of these texts spanning a century of the Arab literary experience with America. I argue that this body of literature can be understood through its own literary history of the American encounter in Arabic literature; a literary history in dialogue with an East-West encounter that has more frequently represented the western 'Other' through European characters and locales. In focusing on the process of identification by Arab characters in America this dissertation argues that the American encounter initiates a particular ambivalence resulting in multiple, and often contradictory, identifications on behalf of the Arab characters which result in poignant crises and strained narrative resolutions.

Modern literature; Middle Eastern literature; Writing; Historical text analysis; Prose; Arabic language; Literary criticism; Literature

Subject Term

Language, literature and linguistics;America;Arabic;Identity;Literature;Mahjar;Travel

Ensing, Leah

Granara, William E.

Subdivision

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Harvard University

Call Number

1625428954; 3645067

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y