Routledge advances in Middle East and Islamic studies ;
Volume Designation
23
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 258-276) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
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Part I: Violence and war: the Algerian war story -- Contesting violence and imposed silence: the creative dissidence of contemporary Francophone Algerian women writers -- Part II: Violence and social/sexual oppression -- Sexual violence and testimony: the language of pain in Aicha Ech-Channa's Miseria: temoignages -- Gendering the Straits: border violence in Laila Lalami's Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Lamiae El Amrani's Tormenta de especias (A Torrent of Spices) -- Writng from the banlieue: identity, contested citizenship and gender ideologies in Faiza Guene's Kiffe-kiffe demain -- Part III: Staging violence in North African women's theatre: Jalila Baccar (Tunisia) and Laila Soliman (Egypt) -- Madness as political dissent in Jalila Baccar's Junun: scene one -- Tunis -- The darker side of Tahrir in Laila Soliman's No Time for Art and Blue Bra Day: scene two -- Tahrir Square, Cairo -- Conclusion: dissident rflections: an anti-conclusion.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
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Dissident Writings of Arab Women: Voices Against Violence analyzes the links between creative dissidence and inscriptions of violence in the writings of a selected group of postcolonial Arab women. The female authors destabilize essentialist framings of Arab identity through a series of reflective interrogations and "contesting" literary genres that include novels, short stories, poetry, docudramas, interviews and testimonials. Rejecting a purist "literature for literature's sake" ethic, they embrace a dissident poetics of feminist critique and creative resistance as they engage in multiple and intergenerational border crossings in terms of geography, subject matter, language and transnationality. This book thus examines the ways in which the women's writings provide the blueprint for social justice by "voicing" protest and stimulating critical thought, particularly in instances of social oppression, structural violence, and political transition. Providing an interdisciplinary approach which goes beyond narrow definitions of literature as aesthetic praxis to include literature's added value as a social, historical, political, and cultural palimpsest, this book will be a useful resource for students and scholars of North African Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Francophone Studies, and Feminist Studies.