scholarly journals Understanding the Function of Empathy through Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Ishak Berrebbah
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Arab American ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Ethnic Literature

Abstract Arab American fiction has received great attention in the post-9/11 period. This ethnic literature has been put under a critical lens due to the aspects that shape it and the issues discussed in it. One of the main objectives of Arab American fiction is to bridge cultural differences and appeal to its readers, both Arabs and non-Arabs. This particular objective is achieved by the authors’ willingness to trigger empathetic engagement with their characters. As such, this paper looks at how Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan (2003) functions in accordance with the poetics of empathy. In other words, the aim of this paper is to show how fiction appeals to its readers through empathy and how empathetic engagement sustains the characters-readers connection, taking West of the Jordan as a literary example. This paper suggests that empathy in fiction is multi-layered and serves different purposes. The arguments are based on a conceptual framework supported by scholarly perspectives of prominent critics and theorists such as Chielozona Eze, Heather Hoyt, and Suzanne Keen, to name just a few.

scholarly journals Writing Arab-American Identity Post 9/11

1970 ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Carol Fadda-Conrey
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Arab American ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arab American Literature

In their introduction to the first anthology of Arab-American short fiction, Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction, editors Pauline Kaldas and Khaled Mattawa (2004) comment on the inextricable link between the global political repercussions triggered by the events of 9/11 and the need to assert Arab-American literature on the US literary map.

scholarly journals Making History Usable: Al-Andalus as a Site of Identity Construction in Arab American Women’s Narratives

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Al-Jayikh Ali Kareem
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Ethnic Literature ◽  
Women's Narratives ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

AbstractIn ethnic literature, the historical and cultural past constantly haunt the present, producing contemporary narratives which emphasize how the heritage plays an essential role in preserving ethnic identity. From a trans-historical perspective, Arab American women’s narratives tend to turn the history of Al-Andalus (Medieval Moorish Spain) into cultural memory as a way of coping with the threats to their existence in the United States, particularly post-9/11, as well as of resisting the hegemonic culture. The aim of this paper is to investigate how Al-Andalus is intended to be seen as a construct of cultural memory and how this site of memory has the power to reshape individual and collective identity.

scholarly journals Understanding Arab American Identity through Orientalist Stereotypes and Representations in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006)

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-52
Author(s):  
Ishak Berrebbah
Keyword(s):  
American Identity ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Arab American ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Society

Abstract Arab-American women’s literature has emerged noticeably in the early years of the 21st century. The social and political atmosphere in post-9/11 America encouraged the growth of such literature and brought it to international attention. This diasporic literature functions as a means of discussing the Orientalist discourse that circumscribes Arab American identity and its effects in determining their position in the wider American society. As such, this article investigates the extent to which Edward Said’s discourse of Orientalism is employed by Mohja Kahf in her novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006) to project the stereotypes and misrepresentations that confine the identity of Arab and Muslim characters in the US society. This article suggests that post-9/11 Arab American fiction serves as a literary reference to such stereotype-based discourse in the contemporary era. The arguments in this article, while employing an analytical and critical approach to the novel, are outlined within postcolonial and Orientalist theoretical frameworks based on arguments of prominent critics and scholars such as Peter Morey, Edward Said, and Jack Shaheen, to name just a few.

A Social Capital Approach to Inter-Cultural Differences

2014 ◽  
pp. 346-361
Author(s):  
Manuela Presutti ◽  
Lucrezia Zambelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Liability Of Foreignness ◽  
Longitudinal Case Study ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Tour Operator

This work examines to what extent cultural differences at a level both of intra-organizational multinational network and inter-organizational multinational network are associated with liability of foreignness. The authors propose a conceptual framework where the different dimensions of social capital improve the exchange and combination of resources and knowledge in different subsidiaries localized in dissimilar cultural contexts, by mitigating the inter and intra organizational cultural differences. This in turn reduces the liability of foreignness. The chapter empirically applies this conceptual framework to one of the world’s largest tour operators. It focuses on different moments of foreign growth of selected tour operator, performing an exploratory longitudinal case study. The findings presented have important implications for research in multinational literature because the chapter proposes to originally study the liability of foreignness and cultural differences topics according to a social network perspective of analysis.

Cultural Differences in Tourism Web Communication: A Preliminary Study

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 761-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangwon Park ◽  
Yvette Reisinger
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Chinese Sample ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Web Communication ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Practical Implications

This article analyzes cultural differences in web communication in the tourism context. the conceptual framework presenting cultural differences in the three types of web communication is developed. the specific hypotheses are tested on the US American and Chinese sample. Although the findings support the developed framework they also reveal nonsignificant differences between the groups. theoretical and practical implications of the findings are identified and recommendations for future studies are made.

scholarly journals Creativity: The Influence of Cultural, Social, and Work Contexts

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Erez ◽  
Rikki Nouri
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Task Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Contextual Characteristic

The present article aims to answer the question of whether creativity is universal or culture-specific. We develop a conceptual framework that expands the existing knowledge in two ways. First, it distinguishes between the two dimensions of creativity – novelty and usefulness, and their relationship to culture. Second, it clarifies how the social context moderates the relationship between culture and creativity. We focus on the social context where cultural differences are likely to be more salient because of the presence of others, relative to the private work context where no one observes whether a person performs in a normative or a unique way. In addition, we propose that task structure, whether a task is tightly or loosely structured, is an important contextual characteristic that moderates the relationship between culture and creativity. Lastly, we offer several propositions to guide future research.

scholarly journals Te “Concept – Image − Motive” Triad in Arab-American Fiction Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-64
Author(s):  
M. A. Dubovitskaya
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Arab American ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Concept Image ◽  
The Social ◽  
Arab American Literature ◽  
Linguistic Material

Arab-American multicultural, or cross-cultural, literature related to different time periods is closely examined in the article. Tese writings are part of borderline literature due to the fact that the central theme in them is the theme of dual (transitional) identity. Te author provides a defnition of “liminality”, which is necessary when considering the phenomena of bilingualism and biculturalism. Te relevance of the study is due to the growing interest in emigrant literature as a source of meanings scattered in the text, contributing to the understanding of the social and cultural context. Te motive, image and the concept are singled out in the works of Arab-American literature to decode hidden meanings. Te results of the analysis of the main motives, taken in diachrony, are presented, and their similarities and differences are revealed. Te fact that the same motives, for example, the motives of nature and music, are found in completely different works, speaks of their semantic, cultural and literary signifcance. Te novelty of the research is seen in the combination of linguo-literary and linguo-stylistic methods in the analysis of linguistic material, which helps to identify psychological, cultural and social aspects in the Arab-American fction discourse.

scholarly journals Pro-Social Trickstars in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 556-576
Author(s):  
Paul Rüsse ◽  
Anastassia Krasnova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Ethnic Literature ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Folk Tale ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Research Questions

Tricksters are usually defined as non-heroic male characters obsessed with food, sex, and general merrymaking, occasionally changing shape and even gender but eventually returning to their masculine self. But is this necessarily true in contemporary ethnic literature? The current essay explores the notion of the trickstar, or the female trickster, in Afghan- American fiction, analysing the three heroines in Khaled Hosseini’s 2007 novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is a mother-daughter story set in Kabul at the turn of the millennium. In order to place this text into a cultural context and underscore the significance of the trickstar figure, it is compared to a traditional Afghan folk tale, “Women’s Tricks.” Two research questions are at the centre of this article: (1) In what ways are trickstars from Afghan folklore similar to the heroines of Hosseini’s novel? and (2) What roles do his heroines perform as pro-social trickstars?

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