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This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel accounts by Arab writers who have visited America between 1668 and 2009. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.
Despite the urgent need to develop understandings of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the light of the current situation in the Middle East, the role of violence and reconciliation in Palestinian and Israeli literature and film has received only brief treatment. This book is intended to fill that void; that is to explore how Israelis and Palestinians view and depict themselves and each other in situations that lead to either violence or reconciliation, and the ways in which both parties define themselves in relation to one another. The book examines selected Palestinian and Israeli literary works and a small number of films and their tacit assumptions about Israeli Jews. It will attempt to look at, among other questions a) is violence perceived as a means of empowerment, b) is there connection between imaginary violence in literature and actual violence, and what is the nature of the association between creative writers and violence? (eg. popular writer Ghassan Kanafani who is also a spokesman for the violent PFLP).
Sami, the first Egyptian student in Israel, falls in love with a Jewish classmate, but his life is suddenly shattered when he finds himself arrested and tried for the murder of a Tel Aviv call girl. Only a miracle can save him from a certain life sentence
This study provides an analysis of the social and political meanings in the protest vernacular poetry of Ah mad Fu'âd Nigm (b. 1929), the contemporary Eqyptian socialist poet. Nigm's work portrays Eqypt as a society composed of contending social forces and it is concerned with the cause of liberating Egypt from class inequality and political oppression. For Nigm, the way to achieve such liberation is through a people's revolution that will ultimately pave the way for a new socialist society.Nigm's commitment to the causes of his society is enhanced by his use of the simple, yet evocative, colloquial, an idiom which is close to the mind and heart of Egypt's poor and illiterate people. Moreov...
In this collection of essays, various manifestations of traditional as well as modern and postmodern themes and techniques in Arabic literature are explored. For the first time the tripartite concepts of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity in Arabic literary works are analyzed in one volume.
Celebrating Muhammad examines a vital but often misunderstood aspect of Islamic piety - the deeply felt love and devotion of contemporary Muslims for the Prophet Muhammad and the importance that this devotion plays in their daily religious lives. Ali S. Asani and Kamal Abdel-Malek examine various portrayals of the Prophet found in Islamic poetry to reveal the significant impact of local cultural and literary idioms on Muslim expressions of admiration for Muhammad.
This volume is a fascinating, interpretative study of the life of the Prophet Muḥammad as depicted in the repertoire of fifty-one contemporary Egyptian singers. The repertoire is extremely diverse and ranges from narrative ballads, classical odes, and Qur'ānic chantings, to melodies of the secular songs of well-known Egyptian singers. The 'people's' Muḥammad appears as both a commanding figure, empowered by the supernatural, and a touchingly vulnerable human being, and provides this study with excellent material for its discussion of a subject that has not received much serious scholarly attention to date.
This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the second half of the century. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.
The final volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature explores the Arabic literary heritage of the little-known period from the twelfth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even though it was during this time that the famous Thousand and One Nights was composed, very little has been written on the literature of the period generally. In this volume Roger Allen and Donald Richards bring together some of the most distinguished scholars in the field to rectify the situation. The volume is divided into parts with the traditions of poetry and prose covered separately within both their 'elite' and 'popular' contexts. The last two sections are devoted to drama and the indigenous tradition of literary criticism. As the only work of its kind in English covering the post-classical period, this book promises to be a unique resource for students and scholars of Arabic literature for many years to come.
Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective is the first sustained study of gender-consciousness in the Palestinian creative imagination. Drawing on concepts from postcolonial feminist theory, Ball analyses a range of literary and filmic works by major creative practitioners including Michel Khleifi , Liana Badr, Annemarie Jacir, Elia Suleiman, Mona Hatoum and Suheir Hammad, and reveals a hitherto unrecognized trajectory in gender-consciousness under development in the Palestinian imagination from the start of the twentieth century. The book explores how these works resonate with questions of power, identity, nation, resistance, and self-representation in the Palestinian imagination more broadly, and asks how these gender-conscious narratives transform our understanding of Palestine's struggle for postcoloniality. Working at the cusp of postcolonial, feminist and cultural enquiry, Ball seeks to open up vital new directions in the interdisciplinary study of Palestine.