Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Al- Nahda Arab writers'

The fictional works of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Arab writers, Mohammadd al-Muwaylihi and Kahlil Gibran share an interest in allegorical landscapes which respond to political and religious tyranny. Throughout their novels, we encounter historically specific images of political corruption and religious oppression located among the urban settings of Salem, Rome, Cairo, Paris, Baalbek, and Beirut. In this thesis, these settings are considered as cultural landscapes: geographical sites which are perceived and presented allegorically within a socio-political frame. These landscapes are drawn on both realist and symbolic levels. Nathaniel Hawthorne presents the shameful burden of religious and political oppression. In works such as The Scarlet Letter and The Marble Faun where is characters are engaged in a rebellion against their cultural institutions to show the defects of such religious and political institutions. For Hawthorne, Boston forest becomes a place that witnesses the birth of the new female rebel to defy the very foundations of the Puritan society. Rome becomes a historical setting where crime survives during the course of the rise and fall of civilisations as reflected in art galleries, churches and ruins: a reality of human destruction that is equally recognized by American and European characters. Al- Muwaylihi’s Hadith Isa Ibn Hisham draws a socio political picture of Egyptian life through the representation of nineteenth century Cairo with its complex streets and buildings. In his second part of the book, al- Muwaylihi presents a journey from Cairo to Paris in which his characters, brutalized by colonial practices, seek the values of modernity at the heart of Europe. Such a journey defied the political and Islamic institutions of his age. For al- Muwaylihi, Parisian sites are symbols of technology and modernity, while Cairo emblematizes the city of conflict as the inhabitants face new social changes through encounters with the European colonizers.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Humanities
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

This doctoral thesis explores the contexts of utopian writing and thinking in the Nahda, the Arab 'Awakening' of the long nineteenth century. Utopian forms of social imagination were responses to fundamental changes in the societies of the Arab-Ottoman world brought about by integration into a capitalist world economy and a European-dominated political system. Much Nahda writing was permeated by a sense of a 'New Age' opening and of wide horizons for future change - and this was not simply illusory, but a direct response to actual and massive changes being wrought in the writers' social world. My study focusses on Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, from the early 1830s to the mid-1870s. An initial chapter offers a definition of the social classes and groups which contributed to the Nahda in these years - such as the Beiruti bourgeoisie and the Egyptian-Ottoman official class - drawing on the work of Arab Marxists such as Mahdi 'Amil and social historians such as Bruce Masters. The following chapters deal in detail with writings produced by three distinct cultural formations within the Nahda movement, and with different aspects of their social imagination. Chapter 2 examines the discourse of civilisation (tamaddun) through the work of the Beiruti writers Khalil al-Khuri and Butrus al-Bustani in the 1850s and 1860s. Chapter 3 deals with Nahda writers' sense of their place within the European-dominated world, mainly through translations of geography books made by Rifa'a al-Tahtawi in Mehmed Ali's Egypt in the 1830s and 1840s. Chapter 4 examines the utopian aspirations of the Nahda, through a close study of the major utopian literary work of the period, Fransis Marrash's Ghabat al-Haqq (The Forest of Justice, 1865). Finally, a conclusion places my study in relation to other recent work in the field of 'Nahda studies'.

The dissertation examines the foundations of modern Arab national thought in nineteenth-century works of Buṭrus al Bustānī (1819-1883) and Aḥmad Fāris al Shidyāq (1804-1887) in which occurred an intersection of language-making practices and a national pedagogic project. It interrogates the centrality of language for Arab identity formation by deconstructing the metaphor "language is the mirror of the nation," an overarching slogan of the nineteenth century, as well as engaging with twentieth-century discussions of the Arab nation and its Nahḍa. The study seeks to challenge the conventional historiography of Arab thought by proposing a re-theorisation of the Arab Nahḍa as an Enlightenment-Modernity construct that constitutes the problematic of the Arab nation. The study investigates through literature and literary tropes the makings and interstices of the historical Arab Nation: the topography of its making. It covers a series of primary understudied sources: Bustānī's enunciative Nafīr Sūriyya pamphlets that he wrote in the wake of the 1860 civil wars of Mount Lebanon and Damascus: his translation of Robinson Crusoe, dictionary, and encyclopaedia. As well as Shidyāq's fictional autobiography, linguistic essays and treatise, and travel writings on Europe. The dissertation engages with these works to show how the 'Nahḍa' is a constituted by inherently contradictory and supplementary projects. It forms a moment of fracture in history and temporality – as does the Enlightenment in Europe – from which emerges a seemingly coherent national narrative.

This thesis explores the reception in the Anglophone West of the works of three Arab women writers Nawel el-Saadawi, Hanan al-Shaykh and Sahar Khalifa. The principal methodological tools are drawn from cultural theories of translation, methods that go beyond a narrow technical focus on accuracy and commensurability in translation. The focus is therefore not on textual analysis, but on (1) political events such as the Iranian revolution of 1979, (2) forms of expertise such as academics, critics, reviewers and translators, and (3) ideological trends, primarily Orientalism and feminism, which all affect the success or failure of reception of a translated text in the host culture. The thesis finds that both forms of expertise and political events play important roles in forging a horizon of expectation, primarily among readerships respecting the content of works which are deemed to be interesting. The principal aim of the thesis, however, is to subject the conventional wisdom, which heavily stresses the overwhelming importance of Orientalism in the reception of female Arab writers in the West, to serious scrutiny. To this end, the oeuvre (mostly fiction) of three prominent writers whose reception has been marked by controversies over Orientalism and feminism was chosen. The goal is not to replace the 'Orientalism' thesis with a simplistic feminism thesis: The present argument accepts that Orientalism has played an important role in the reception of the three writers, although in fractured and varied ways. However, I also argue that feminism has played an important and increasing role in literary reception, particularly in the case of Nawal el-Saadawi. The idea is that feminist expectations and concerns, in conjunction with political events, create a 'knowledge vacuum' among readerships which is then filled by particular, relevant texts. In other words, it is inadequate to shoehorn all forms of Western reception into a vague and hydra-like category of Orientalism. However, the argument does not lionize the feminist movement: I show how feminism is marked on the one hand by Orientalism -a standard claim - but also how feminism itself is limited by its concern for gender on the one hand, and forins of political conservatism on the other, especially on controversial issues in Middle East politics, such as Israel / Palestine. I show this last point particularly through my exploration of the reception of the work of Sahar Khalifa. In a broader sense, the thesis aims to indicate how cultural interaction between 'West' and 'East' is more complicated than monolithic and essentialist analyses would have us believe. The idea is to bolster readings of Edward Said which do not fall into this trap. Ultimately, such a reading points beyond the notion of nativism on the one side, and Eurocentrism on the other.

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).
Esta tesis proporciona un análisis de la representación de los hombres árabo-americanos en novelas escritas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. Este estudio contribuye una novedosa investigación en relación a la literatura árabo-americana al juntar el estudio de la literatura escrita por mujeres y el análisis de las masculinidades árabo-americanas. La tesis explora la construcción de las masculinidades árabo-americanas, al mismo tiempo que explica la historia de los feminismos árabo-americanos, situando a las mujeres árabo-americanas en un espacio privilegiado de contestación y crítica en su lucha contra el sexismo y contra el racismo. Esta tesis quiere visibilizar la compleja representación de los hombres árabes y árabo-americanos ofrecida por mujeres árabo-americanas después del 11 de septiembre, mujeres influenciadas por el feminismo desde los años noventa. En su lucha contra el sexismo y el racismo, estas mujeres proporcionan representaciones ambivalentes de hombres árabes que contrarrestan los discursos estereotípicos recurrentes después del 11 de septiembre y arraigados en la psique norteamericana. Además, proporciona un análisis de la ficción como representación de la realidad, entendiendo la literatura como conductor potencial de cambio en los discursos culturales. Para ello, el estudio se estructura en cuatro partes que examinan los contextos, razones y potenciales consecuencias de las representaciones específicas de las masculinidades árabo-americanas publicadas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. El primer capítulo cubre la vilificación y racialización históricas del hombre árabe en los Estados Unidos, tomando las teorías de “biopolitics” (Foucault), “necropolitics” (Mbembe, Puar), y “monster-terrorist” (Puar y Rai) para entender la experiencia traumática del 11 de septiembre. El segundo trata sobre los discursos que ayudan a la construcción social de las identidades y masculinidades árabo-americanas, dando especial énfasis a las teorías de “neopatriarchy” (Sharabi), “heterotopia” (Foucault) y “thirdspace” (Soja, Bhaba). La construcción de identidades árabo-americanas también es analizada, así como las masculinidades árabo-americanas. El tercer capítulo examina el desarrollo y características de los feminismos árabo-americanos, así como su influencia para las escritoras árabo-americanas. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo recoge las teorías expuestas en los capítulos previos y proporciona un análisis literario de los personajes masculinos en un grupo de novelas publicadas después del 11 de septiembre: Crescent (2003) de Diana Abu-Jaber, West of the Jordan (2003) de Laila Halaby, Towelhead (2005) de Alicia Erian, Once in A Promised Land (2007) de Laila Halaby, The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007) de Frances Kirallah Noble, The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007) de Susan Muaddi Darraj, A Map of Home (2008) de Randa Jarrar, y The Night Counter (2009) de Alia Yunis.

The purpose of this thesis is to firmly situate the fictions of contemporary Arab British and Arab American women writers who write in English within the corpus of ethnic and mainstream literary criticism. I aim to position these fictions within their historical and sociopolitical contexts. I also aim to shift the focus from the texts’ female protagonists to male and minor characters in order to explore how the writers construct both political Islam and Islam as a private faith; how they construct Palestinian Muslim masculinities; and how they respond to the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror. I argue that these fictions offer some of the most astute reactions to the events of 9/11 and their repercussions. I also argue that Arab American literature in general and Arab American women’s literature in particular is more canny than its Arab British counterpart. Thus, I aim to show how Arab American literary productions refract a development from the literature of self-exploration to that of transformation allowing them a well-deserved spot in Ethnic-American literary studies and in time, mainstream American literary studies. Another of my aims is to investigate how Arab American and Arab British writers highlight the diversity of Arabs, Muslims and Islam, thus addressing essentialist reductions of Arabs and Muslims as a monolithic group. In chapter one, I investigate how Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun and Leila Aboulela’s Minaret negotiate issues such as Islamic clothing. I also question anew Arab women writers’ perceived role as “cultural commentators.” In chapter two, I explore how Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan and Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home construct Palestinian Muslim masculinities, and how they challenge the Anglo-American stereotypical representations of Arab Muslim masculinity. In chapter three, I analyse how Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land, Frances Khirallah Noble’s The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy and Alia Yunis’ The Night Counter negotiate cultural, political and social views of America. I aim to examine whether Halaby, Noble and Yunis’ ambiguous position, as legally ‘white’ citizens who are also members of a marginalized and religiously racialized minority, offers them a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between ‘East’ and ‘West.’ In the conclusion, I offer some suggestions for future research.

The purpose of this thesis is to compare the works of contemporary Arab British and Arab American women novelists with a view toward delineating a poetics of the more nascent Arab British literature. I argue that there is a tendency among Arab British women novelists to foreground and advocate trans-cultural dialogue and cross-ethnic identification strategies in a more pronounced approach than their Arab American counterparts who tend, in turn, to employ literary strategies to resist stereotypes and misconceptions about Arab communities in American popular culture. I argue that these differences result from two diverse racialized Arab immigration and settlement patterns on both sides of the Atlantic. Chapter One looks at how Arab British novelist Fadia Faqir's My Name is Salma and Arab American novelist Diana Abu-Jaber's Arabian Jazz define Arabness differently in the light of the precarious position Arabs occupy in ethnic and racial discourses in Britain and in the United States. Chapter Two examines how Arab British women writers Ahdaf Soueif and Leila Aboulela valorize trans-cultural and cross-ethnic dialogues and alliances in their novels The Map of Love and Minaret respectively through engaging with the two (interlocking) strands of feminism in the Arab world: secular and Islamic feminisms. In Chapter Three, I demonstrate how the two novels of Arab American women writers Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent and Laila Halaby's West of the Jordan explore the contradictions of Arab American communities from within and employ strategies of intertextuality and storytelling to subvert stereotypes about Arabs. As this study is interested in exploring the historical and socio-political contexts in which Arab women writers on both sides of the Atlantic produce their work, the conclusion investigates how the two sets of authors have represented, from an Arab perspective, the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror in their novels.

This thesis will be a comparative study charting the emergence of feminist consciousness in the novels of English and Arab female writers. The tripartite structure that this evolution follows - Feminine, Feminist, Female - will be based to some degree on the theory presented by Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own. The work of three English novelists will be compared and contrasted with that of three modern Arabic novelists, which would fall into the same stage of development. The outline for this is as follows: 1. Feminine stage: the development of female consciousness during this phase was still being directly influenced and affected by a repressive patriarchal society. This manifested itself in the adoption of male pseudonyms by women writers, and the writing was generally oblique, displaced, ironic and subversive. The English author representative of this stage is Charlotte Bronte, and the Arab author Layla al-'Uthman. 2. Feminist stage: the distinguishing characteristics of women writers' work in this stage were vocal protests against male government, law and medicine, and the quest for a female utopia. The English author Sarah Grand will be the example of development in female consciousness at this level, and for the Arab author Nawal al-Sacdawi. 3. Female stage (which runs up to the present time): achieved by the authors through the redefinition of internal and external experiences, and determined by forays into the imprisoning and liberating aspects of female consciousness. For the purposes of this thesis, the English author Virginia Woolf will be representing this stage, and the Arab author Hanan al-Shaykh. In presenting an overview of the development of female literary consciousness through the novels of English women writers, this thesis will attempt to assess the development of contemporary Arab female writers, and uncover the trajectory of softness and anger in their work.

The attempt to come to terms with the meaning of home, both literally and metaphorically, has become a major concern in literary studies. This dissertation explores the various novelistic representations of home from the point of view of Arab migrant novelists. Home, which contains various references to architectural structures, nations, states, or belonging, can no longer be thought of as a generalized or unified experience. For the migrant writer, the concept of home takes shape as a result of interaction between the past and the present, with memory playing a powerful role. It is created as a result of various forces in tension that include personal and national experiences, the context within which migration from the traditional home place occurred, ideological allegiances and identity politics. I argue through my exploration of a number of novels written by Arab writers who migrated from their home countries that the concept of home can no longer be referred to as a generalized, definite or a fixed notion. Given the different circumstances of the movement from one country to another, even among nationals of the same country, what are the themes that will be stressed in an Arab writer’s imagination and portrayal of home? Will writers stress the exclusions of exile, and define their presence away from the original country clearly as ‘exile’, fixating on painful nostalgia? How does memory influence the perception of home? Will those writers who have lived a long time in a new ‘foreign’ country emphasize the adaptations in the diaspora and the privileges of migration? Will they offer critiques of the national project, making a clear distinction between the personal home and the national project? Will such boundaries be as clearly defined for all the writers? Those questions guide my investigation into the representation of home in the novels of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi writers living away from their three countries of origin. This investigation takes place within the postcolonial theoretical framework of the implications of the site of migration about the revision of the centrality of the nation as a referent of identity. The analysis uncovers a variety of illustrations in the imagination of home and the portrayal of the national experience in the novels. The analysis also highlights the inextricable link between the personal experience and the political experience, whereby the ideological stance on issues of nation and nationalism cannot be easily isolated in an assessment of the cultural product at the site of migration.

In the European narration of the Orient, there is a deliberate stress on those qualities that make the East different from the West. In his Orientalism Edward Said offers perspectives for studying the Western works that depict the Orient and its people. He argues that the orientalist discourse has managed - and till now continues - to exile the Orient into an irretrievable state of "otherness”. This thesis contains an analytical and critical examination of Said's views as presented in his book. It attempts to test Said's formulations against a deliberately assorted collection of English literary works. The First Chapter sketches the general background to the theory of the orientalist discourse and to Said's views of the latter in regard to the Western documentation of the East and the Arabs. This chapter also offers an explanation for the deliberate choice of 'primary texts'. The Second Chapter introduces Lawrence Durrell's work The Alexandria Quartet and examines how far Durrell adheres to the 'rituals' of the orientalists as defined by Said. The chapter's main focus is on Durrell's depiction of Alexandria as an Arab city. Chapter Three is primarily concerned with Durrell's treatment of the 'desert'. This is compared to the introduction of the theme of the desert in the writing (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom) of T. E. Lawrence who is cited as a representative of the traditional English 'desert' writers. Chapter Four contains an appreciation to Durrell's treatment to the theme of the 'quest'. The quest of Mountolive is compared to the treatment of that theme in William Beckford's Vathek. Durrell's portrayal of the Alexandrian woman and 'Egyptian sexuality' is discussed in Chapter Five, with a retrospect to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The Chapter examines the differences and the similarities between old and modern presentations of the Alexandrian woman. Chapter Six looks at Edna O'Brien's Arabian Days. This Chapter investigates the representation of the Arabs in the post-colonial post-oil modern time. It attempts to see if O'Brien's writing still conveys the old dogmas of the orientalist discourse. Chapter Seven deals with Jonathan Raban's representation of the Arab World in his Arabia Through The Looking Glass. Raban's expedition to Arabia comes a few years after O'Brien's, and it is worth considering how far the two experiences are similar or different. The Chapter also tries to demonstrate the weight of Raban's work when taken in the context of mainstream representation of the Arabs and their world especially in the work of Durrell. The Conclusion emphasizes the need for a fairer stand in relation to the depiction and the portrayal of one culture by another. It also poses the question of how far should portrayals be trusted or, indeed, be judged. It calls for the lifting up of the fog that clouds the visions of both sides in question.

During the Arabic cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century known as the nahda, Christian Arabs made a substantial contribution to the development of fiction and journalism. Among these pioneers, Salim al-Bustani, Jurji Zaydan, and Farah Antun were inspired by translations of European fiction to write the first historical novels in Arabic. Their narrations of the Muslim wars of conquest are carefully constructed blends of history and fiction that emphasize the cultural and religious values that Christian and Muslim Arabs hold in common. In their novels, these authors celebrate the historical achievements of the Arabs and seek to inspire a new sense of Arab cultural identity, open to Christians and Muslims alike and based on shared language, history, territory, values, and aspirations for reform. In this way, these authors respond to the sectarian tensions of their time, European imperialism, and the challenges of modernism with ideas that would become central to Arab nationalist discourse in the twentieth century.

This study investigated the ways English native and Arab EFL student writers in a UK university from two disciplines (i.e. Linguistics and Literature) use language in their master’s dissertations to interact with readers. How they present themselves and convey judgements and opinions, and how they connect with readers and establish rapport were examined by the employment of Hyland’s (2005b) model of stance and engagement, which encompasses nine categories: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, reader references, directives, asides, questions, and references to shared knowledge. The primary data used consisted of a corpus of 39 master’s dissertations and discourse-based semi-structured interviews with 15 of the writers. While a corpus analysis helped to reveal which features were overused and which ones were underused, interviews were conducted to discover more about how and why the writer participants used such features in their academic writing. The findings suggest that while it is true that both disciplinary community and cultural background are very likely to have an impact on the way writers position themselves and their readers, there are other factors related to the students’ conceptions of academic writing in general and their audience in particular which appear to have a more vital role in the writers’ use of stance and engagement markers. These include personality differences, stylistic preferences, previous education, and supervisors’ comments and advice. The thesis closes by exploring the implications of this study for both EAP writing pedagogy and dissertation supervision and proposing some new directions for future research.

Cette thèse étudie des œuvres littéraires arabo-américaines contemporaines écrites par des femmes, plus spécifiquement les écrits d’Evelyn Shakir tels que Bint Arab, ainsi que plusieurs autres romans dont Arabian Jazz et Crescent de Diana Abu Jaber, The Inheritance of Exile de Susan Muaddi Darraj, The Night Counter d’Alia Yunis, et Once in a Promised Land de Laila Halaby. Elle montre comment ces œuvres construisent des univers où peuvent être interrogées les notions d’identité, de culture, d’ethnicité, et de genre. Les conflits quotidiens autour de l’identité sont traités en se fondant à la fois sur les œuvres critiques des femmes arabo-américaines et sur les études psycho-sociales du biculturalisme. De plus, ce travail met l’accent sur la formation de solidarités entre les femmes de couleur, en élargissant le concept de « conscience des zones frontalières » d’Anzaldua pour inclure les œuvres des écrivaines arabo-américaines. Les théories développées après la colonisation, particulièrement les études sur l’orientalisme à la suite d’Edward Said, sont également invoquées pour remettre en question le modèle oriental de la féminité. Enfin, cette thèse analyse la narration et son rôle dans la création d’un point d’ancrage pour les identités « exilées », insistant plus particulièrement sur la figure de Shéhérazade. Ce travail montre ainsi la façon dont les productions littéraires peuvent créer de nouveaux espaces pour comprendre les problèmes sociaux, politiques, culturels, ou ethniques
This dissertation analyses contemporary Arab-American literary productions by female writers, specifically, Shakir’s collection of memoirs Bint Arab and her two short stories “Oh Lebanon” and “Name Calling,” as well as a selection of novels, Abu Jaber’s Arabian Jazz and Crescent, Darraj’s The Inheritance of Exile, Alia Yunis’s The Night Counter, and Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land. It shows how these works construct a space which enables them to investigate questions of identity, culture, ethnicity and gender. Identity conflicts around everyday matters like physical appearance, color, dress codes, veiling, chastity, and marriage are addressed by drawing upon critical works by Arab-American female writers and psycho-social studies on biculturalism. Moreover, this work emphasizes coalition-building with women of color by extending Anzaldua’s concept of the “consciousness of the borderlands” to encompass works by Arab-American female writers. Theories by post-colonial thinkers, particularly Said’s studies on Orientalism, also contribute to the dissertation’s questioning of the Oriental model of womanhood. Finally, this dissertation envisages critical works that study storytelling and its role in creating a surrogate home for “exilic” identities, with special emphasis on the Scheherazadian narrative. This project views literary productions as an appropriate way to investigate social, political, cultural and ethnic issues. It shows how writings by Arab-American women contribute to exploring inner identity conflicts, how they connect with other minority groups, and how they create a new sense of home

Doctor of Philosophy
Curriculum and Instruction Programs
Marjorie R. Hancock
This qualitative case study sought to gain deeper understanding of the role the writing process approach played in developing the writing ability of five fifth grade Saudi Arabian students when writing in English as a second language. The study extended for five months in a Midwest elementary school serving a large ESL population. Participants of this study included four ESL teachers and five Saudi ESL students, four females and one male. Two main queries guided this study: 1) the roles of ESL teachers when using the writing process approach in teaching writing in English as a second language to five fifth grade Saudi Arabian ESL students; and 2) the role of the writing process approach in the writing development of five fifth grade Saudi Arabian ESL students. The researcher documented data through four sources: classroom observation, interviews with ESL teacher and ESL students, student think-aloud protocols, and student writing samples. The data analysis of the ESL teachers revealed strong advocacy of utilizing the writing process as an effective method to improve ESL Saudi Arabian students’ writing ability. They were successful in employing the writing process approach regardless of their students’ English language proficiency level, using numerous writing strategies including collaborative writing activities, games, varying speed and voice tone, interest in students’ cultures and languages, and social interaction with the students. The data analysis of the study’s student focus revealed that students writing was not a one step process, yet an ongoing cycle in which they prewrite, plan, draft, pause, read, revise, edit, and publish. Students demonstrated different attitudes and behaviors toward writing throughout this study. Four of the students valued their second language (L2); one, however, found English difficult and confusing. Some of the students’ writing sample scores, determined by the Six Traits Writing Rubric, differed by the end of the study while others’ remained the same. This study provided rich data to better understand the importance of teachers utilizing effective writing process techniques and the impact of the writing process approach on Saudi Arabian students learning to write in English in an American school setting.

Le paradigme de la Nahda, ou Renaissance arabe est un puissant zeitgeist qui revient cycliquement dans la pensée et le monde culturel du Moyen-Orient depuis la fin du 19eme siècle. Cette thèse questionne les raisons du retour du paradigme dans les années 2000 (et en particulier entre 2001 et 2005) en Egypte et dans les Emirats (Doha et Sharjah) en observant les rapports de force entre différentes sphères artistiques et les structures de mécénat. Elle interroge la raison d'être de cette quête pour une Renaissance culturelle, les enjeux liées au mécénat, l'exploitation politique du culturel et en particulier les questions d'authenticité, de culture nationale et globale, musulmane ou séculière, d'indépendance et enfin, de liberté artistique. L'étude du paradigme passe à travers la comparaison des discours et des oeuvres des 'artistes d'états' soutenus par le pouvoir de Moubarak, des artistes commerciaux, qui derrière Adel Imam, sont les fers de lance du pouvoir séculier contre les islamistes égyptiens; et des artistes arabes et internationaux qui à Doha ou Sharjah gravitent autour du riche mécénat des Emirats. En opposition à l'état, plusieurs sphères sont étudiées: celle des artistes 'indépendants' mais soutenus par les fondations privées ainsi que la sphère des artistes musulmans qui proposent un fan al hadif, ou 'art modeste'. La sphère des artistes digitaux enfin, autonomes par rapport aux réseaux de mécénat, permet de confirmer l'existence d'une réelle Renaissance culturelle digitale soutenue par l'explosion des réseaux sociaux, une décennie avant les révolutions arabes. En questionnant la position des artistes vis à vis de leurs mécènes et par rapport au pouvoir, cette thèse souligne l'importance du discours culturel et artistique pour la sphère publique et ses répercussions sur les enjeux de citoyenneté
The Nahda, or "Arab Renaissance" is a powerful returning paradigm in Egypt and the Middle East cultural field since the end of the 19th century. The aim of this dissertation is to assess, through the study of the new paradigm, the autonomy of the arts in Egypt and the Middle East and their relation to power and to interrogate the role of art in identity definition and in the "dialogue" with Islam after 9/11 - and especially after foreign actors have greatly re-shuffled the power relationship. The first case study focuses on "state artists" in Egypt and studies the passage from the Tahtqif, or "culturisation" of Egyptians in the name of Enlightenment and the gradually undermining of state monopoly over identity politics. The second chapter is dedicated to Arab artists and their Gulf patrons: the agency of the "invisible hand" of the global artistic market is discussed, through two case studies in Doha and Sharjah. The third chapter assesses the state narrative against Islamists in Egypt through the figure of comedy actor Adel Imam. The second part is dedicated to the artists in opposition to the state. Chapter I reviews the agency of the artistic sphere in total opposition with the state, with the study of a group of young Muslim filmmakers who intented to contribute to a fann al hadif or "purposeful art". The two following chapters review the works of the "independent scene" that saw the light after the arrival arrival en masse of foreign funding in 2001, while the last case studies centred on Digital artists venture into giving the first hints of a conclusion about a Digital Renaissance that took place after after 2004, and of the adoption of social networks in Egypt. The importance of the arts in the political discourse, its agency in the process of secularization, nationalist debates or international relations in the time of globalisation, is barely mentioned in political science. This dissertation is intended to corroborate the claim that there is much to learn from the art spectrum and from its agency on societal changes and power struggles

La franc-maçonnerie apparaît être, dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe, un élément essentiel du développement intellectuel et culturel du Bilâd al-Shâm. Ses membres sont impliqués dans le mouvement de renaissance intellectuelle Nahda, qui profite de l’ère politique nouvelle de l’Empire ottoman ouverte par les tanzimat. Dans ce contexte, les conflits religieux continuent d’agiter une société confessionnalisée, que les francs-maçons entraînent dans la voie du progrès, de la modernité et de la laïcité. Dans la 1e partie de la thèse, on présente la franc-maçonnerie dans sa réalité concrète à Beyrouth et au Mont Liban, prenant pour modèles deux loges, Palestine et Le Liban, mais aussi dans sa dimension spirituelle. Le processus d’intégration de la franc-maçonnerie et d’inculturation dans le milieu arabe est souligné, de même que le rôle que les francs-maçons font jouer à la Société Scientifique Syrienne. L’émir Muhammad Arslan, franc-maçon et réformateur, est présentée en tant qu’exemple d’une Aufklärung arabe. La 2e partie de la thèse montre le dialogue stérile entre francs-maçons et jésuites en Syrie ottomane. Le jugement sur l’entrée des croyants en franc-maçonnerie que porte un savant musulman, est présenté à partir de l’étude du premier manuscrit en arabe qui en traite. La thèse fait appel à divers témoignages publiés de contemporains, mais aussi à des manuscrits conservés dans des archives publiques et privées. Plusieurs d’entre eux sont utilisés pour la première fois, tel le plus ancien rituel maçonnique en langue arabe, le règlement intérieur de la première loge de Beyrouth ou les statuts inédits de la Société Scientifique Syrienne fondée par les francs-maçons. La recherche conduit ainsi à relever de quelle manière la franc-maçonnerie au cœur de débats, a proposé un modèle de société qui apparaît davantage méta-religieux qu’areligieux ou antireligieux. Cette société est celle où peut vivre désaliéné quiconque aspire au progrès et à la modernité
Freemasonry appears to be in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, an essential part of the cultural development of Bilâd al-Shâm. Its members were involved in the intellectual movement revival "Nahda", which itself has been able to take advantage of the new political era of the Ottoman Empire opened by the Tanzimat. Religious conflicts continued to wave a confessional society. The Freemasons led it in the path of progress, modernity and secularism. In the 1st part of the thesis, we present Freemasonry in its concrete reality in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, through two lodges, Palestine and Le Liban, but also in its spiritual dimension. The integration and the Arabization process is emphasized by Freemasonry through the use of the ritual, and in the role that Freemasons played in the constitution of the Syrian Scientific Society in Beirut. A personality of rare diplomacy and knowledge, Emir Muhammad Arslan, Freemason and reformer, is presented as an example of an Arab intellectual. The 2nd part shows the fruitless dialogue between the Freemasons and the Jesuits in Ottoman Syria. The case of the Wandering Jew is an emblematic episode in the struggle for secularism led by Freemasons. Also we present the 1st manuscript written in Arabic in the Ottoman Empire by a Muslim scholar. The thesis uses various published testimonies of contemporaries, but is also based on manuscripts kept in public and private archives. Some of them, which have never been used so far, such as the oldest Masonic ritual in Arabic, provide a new light on the beginning of Freemasonry in Beirut and on its impact in the history of Ottoman Syria. The research concludes how Freemasonry at the heart of debates, was able to propose a new model of society that seems more meta-religious than non-religious or anti-religious. This is the new society, in which every human being is able to yearn for freedom and aspire to progress and modernity

Ao acompanhar a trajetória intelectual de Jamil Almansur Haddad desde suas primeiras publicações até sua morte, esta Tese de doutorado traz à luz o percurso de um literato pertencente à segunda geração de imigrantes libaneses e suas relações paradoxais com o meio intelectual brasileiro e, em especial, o paulistano. Seu percurso biográfico ilustra um desdobramento do movimento literário árabe da imigração, que desempenhou papel central no processo de renascimento da literatura árabe no final do século XIX. Imerso no contexto cultural de um país em busca da conformação de sua verdadeira identidade nacional e vivendo na cidade de São Paulo - que em meados do século XX foi um dos maiores polos de imigração do mundo Jamil, através de sua experiência biográfica e de seu caminho literário, revela nuances de um processo intermediário de hibridação cultural.
This thesis follows the intellectual trajectory of Jamil Almansur Haddad from his first publications to his death, bringing to light the trajectory of a poet that belongs to the second generation of Lebanese immigrants and his paradoxical relations with the Brazilian intellectual environment and, in particular, the paulistano one. His biographical journey illustrates an unfolding of the Arab literary movement of immigration, which played a central role in the process of rebirth of Arab literature in the late nineteenth century. Immersed in the cultural context of a country in search of the conformation of its true national identity and living in the city of São Paulo - which in the mid-twentieth century was one of the largest poles of immigration in the world - Jamil, through his biographical experience and his literary path, reveals nuances of an intermediate process of cultural hybridization.

This thesis traces the development of the concept of freedom through three generations of the Modern Arab Renaissance (Nahda). The first chapter challenges the claim that the concept of freedom, in the sense of a political right, was absent from Arab thought prior to the French occupation of Egypt (1798-1801). ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti’s (1754-1825/6) chronicle of the occupation reveals that he possessed the concept of freedom despite the lack of an Arabic word to identify it. Therefore, when Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi (1801-73) translated the French term liberté into Arabic, through a semantic expansion of the word hurriyah, he was naming rather than introducing the concept. The second chapter turns to Syria and examines how Butrus al-Bustani’s (1819-83) advocacy of the freedom of conscience (hurriyat al-damir) as an individual right reflects the influence of his American missionary mentors. However, while the missionaries used this concept to defend their narrow sectarian interests, Bustani believed that the freedom of all citizens must be protected equally by a secular government. The third chapter follows two Syrian friends, Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) and Farah Antun (1874-1922), who migrated to Egypt where their differing visions of reform brought them into conflict on the pages of their respective literary journals. While Antun argued that secularism provides the best guarantee of freedom, Rida contended that true freedom is only found in Islam. Despite this divide, they shared the same fundamental understanding of the value and meaning of freedom. This chapter shows that the concept of freedom is compatible with differing political ideologies while maintaining its core semantic field. Although there were some changes in how Arab intellectuals conceived of freedom during the nineteenth century, this study demonstrates that there was considerable continuity.
text