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 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.

Psychology: Volume 2

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religion And Media ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Psychological Perspective

This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Two of the survey, Individual and the Social: Processes and Issues, not only summarizes research in emerging areas of social psychology but also offers innovative theorization connecting self and collective. It considers a cultural and developmental perspective on the development of sociality in an interdisciplinary context. As revealed by the cross-cultural and cultural-psychological investigations, the meanings and practices constituting culture are critical to the way the notions of self and identity are formed and connect with social aspects of life. With this in view, the contributions to this volume focus on the developments in the study of personality formation and social psychological processes. Going beyond the prevailing individual-centric view, the seven chapters comprising this volume try to capture the developments in the study of personality, socialization, media influence, family dynamics, and religion from a social-psychological perspective. It also contextualizes the process of socialization in India. It analyses how discourses like family, religion, and media contribute to the psychological development of an individual as a member of the contemporary Indian society. It also integrates the different ways in which personality and identity are understood in contemporary psychological discourse. Additionally, it analyses the interdependence between the individual and the collective. Taken together, the contributors discuss prominent studies of processes and issues pertaining to the connection between the individual and his/her socio-cultural context.

Intersections of Arab American and Asian American Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol W.N. Fadda
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Asian American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian American Literature ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Arab American Literature

The interconnections between Asian American and Arab American studies are deep and long-standing, with scholars and activists in both these intersecting fields affirming their common investments in anti-racist, anti-imperial, transnational, and coalitional feminist frameworks. Various scholars have even called for Arab Americans to be included under a broader definition of Asian American identities. An intersectional study of the forms of alliances and solidarities developing among these racialized communities becomes a cornerstone for combating the effects of racism, orientalism, imperialism, and xenophobia, as well as enactments of occupation, exclusions, internment, and incarceration carried out by the projects of colonialism and empire within the United States and abroad. Even while being shaped by the specificities of geographical, historical, and political contexts, Arab American literature showcases an array of thematic foci and engagements that link it to other ethnic literary traditions, including Asian American literature. Such thematic connections extend to engagements with cultural and transnational in-betweenness, collective and individual marginalization and racialization, wars and conflicts in original home countries and their effects on US diasporic identities, transnational connections and movement across borders, food and cultural memory, language, gender roles, heritage, and religious expression, to name but a few. The literary output of Arab American and Asian American writers from the 19th century up till the early 21st century closely reflects the factors that shape Arab and Asian experiences in the United States and the conditions that shape the affective, material, legal, and political lives of immigrant and diasporic communities. The viewpoints, experiences, and perspectives presented in the works of Arab American and Asian American writers, however, are far from uniform. They are widely varied, encompassing different immigration pathways, histories, struggles, military and geopolitical conflicts, literary lineages, and artistic investments.

scholarly journals Wading the Field with My Key Informant: Exploring Field Relations

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-104
Author(s):  
Anne Ryen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Field Interaction ◽  
Emergent Phenomenon ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

Entering and staying on in the field or rather avoiding being kicked out are the two classic ethnographic challenges. The rather positivist nature of textbook guidance on dos and don’ts in fieldwork in general and in delicate issues in particular (for researchers` dilemmas in the field see Ryen 2002), tend to recommend a gentle, middle-class (rather female) interactional style. This gaze suffers from being both researcher-focused (cf.Fine 1994 on “Othering”) and based on problematic pre-fixed identities nailing us to the role pair as researcher and key informant. As the introductory extract illustrates, it takes patience also to have an ethnographer “hanging around”. This article deals with the credibility of qualitative research when accounting for or exploring how we do staying in the cross-cultural field and it asks how can we credibly explore the stamina that takes us further? If we accept fieldwork as social interaction, we need to bring the social (or the “inter”) of it into the exploration of our puzzle. Membership categorisation device (MCD) offers to take us closer to understanding and piecing together our puzzle, but to better get at the events taking place in field interaction there is a need also to introduce the wider cultural context and the images available (or not) to members. In this way I recognise the ethnomethodological differentiation between topic and resource, but argue that when understandings and images are not necessarily culturally shared and collective, we also need to make problematic how members deal with the unavailability of shared images. In the conclusion I argue that the artful side of the local interpretive work in the field is closely entangled with whatever meanings or images are available for construction (in line with Gubrium and Holstein 1997:121). In cross-cultural contexts more than in others, this is particularly delicate because in such contexts images and experiences often do not connect and may lead to complications or even breakdown in communication (Ryen 2002). Mending or repair thus becomes another crucial phenomenon, itself complex, in the evolving field relations. The analysis thus pinpoints the artistry of members` local collaborative efforts accentuated when constrained by images or descriptions that do not connect across cultures. This makes stamina a joint effort, though itself an intricate, emergent phenomenon. Next I will briefly introduce a couple of classic works on working with key informants followed by a brief presentation of the analytic approaches to be applied to my data from East- Africa. Before concluding, I will comment on “wading the field” as reflected in the close exploration of the cross-cultural extracts.

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.

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