Revolutionary Solitude: Edward Said and Najla Said

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahia Abdel Nasser
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
American Family ◽  
National Movement ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian National Movement

This chapter examines Arab Anglophone memoirs by focusing on Edward Said’s Out of Place: A Memoir (1999) and Najla Said’s Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family (2013). Out of Place traces Edward Said’s cultural and literary journey from Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt to his education in the US. Edward Said’s self-representation rests on the dichotomy of his solitude during his formation within a history of dispossession and his career. The chapter rethinks Out of Place through the burgeoning of the Palestinian national movement and Said’s lifework. The chapter also compares Edward Said’s youth in the Arab world and Najla Said’s Arab-American background, Said’s journey to the US and his daughter’s return to her roots, to arrive at a rethinking of the genre that migrates across languages and cultures.

scholarly journals Arab American College Students: What Predicts Their Engagement with the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manal Yazbak Abu Ahmad ◽  
Adrienne Dessel ◽  
Noor Ali
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jewish Students ◽  
Arab Students ◽  
Arab Schools

Arab and Jewish U.S. college students are impacted by the Israeli/Palestinian (I/P) conflict and heated interactions among students have erupted across campuses. There is a dearth of research on Arab American student perspectives on this conflict and on their interactions with Jewish students in higher education settings. This study seeks to further our understanding of these topics by reporting on a quantitative survey of Arab American college students (n=66). We examined dependent variables of Arab students seeking education on the I/P conflict, and interest in collaborating with Jewish students for peace. Independent variables were gender, religion, having Jewish friends, learning about Jewish history of oppression, growing up in Arab schools and communities, and parents’ and own views about Palestine. Multiple regression analysis indicates being male, believing Palestine is important, learning about Jewish history of oppression, and having parents with pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel attitudes predicted students’ seeking out education about the conflict. Being male, Christian, having friends who are Jewish and wanting opportunities to talk with Jews about the conflict predicted higher interest in Arab students’ wanting to collaborate with Jewish students for peace. Implications for working with these two groups on college campuses given both the tensions in the Middle East and experiences of Arab American college students are discussed and future recommendations are made for educational settings.

Crime of Nationalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kraig Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Criminal Enterprise ◽  
National Project ◽  
National Movement ◽  
National Autonomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian National Movement ◽  
National Domain

The Palestinian national movement gestated in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it was born in the Great Revolt of 1936–39, a period of sustained Arab protest against British policy in Palestine. In this book, Matthew Kraig Kelly makes the novel case that the key to understanding the rebellion lies in the "crimino-national" domain—a hitherto neglected area of overlap between criminological and nationalist discourses, and the primary terrain upon which the war of 1936–39 was fought. As Kelly elaborates, apart from national autonomy, the Palestinian rebels’ primary objective was to repudiate the British framing of their national movement as a criminal enterprise. The rebels therefore appropriated the institutions and even the aesthetics that betokened London’s legal title to Palestine, donning rank-specific uniforms and erecting their own postal, prison, and justice systems. In thus establishing the rudiments of a state, Palestinians shifted the criminal mantle onto their opponents: the British and the Zionists. Crime, in this sense, was the central preoccupation of the Palestinian national project, as it likely was of other such projects on the fringe of empire. Kelly's analysis amounts to a new history of the rebellion, and it offers important lessons for studies of interwar nationalism and insurgency more broadly.

Map-Making for Building the Palestinian Nation-State

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-195
Author(s):  
Christine Leuenberger ◽  
Izhak Schnell
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Aerial Photos ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
National Movement ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian National Movement

Throughout the 20th century, the rise of the Zionist national movement paralleled the strengthening of the Palestinian national movement. The struggle of the Israelis and the Palestinians over Palestine also manifested itself in the history of surveying and mapping, and their respective rights to do so. After the Hagannah looted the Survey of Palestine, the Palestinians were left with few cartographic resources. The lack of maps of their own weakened their negotiating position during peace negotiations with Israel. Yet, it was not until the 1993 Oslo Accords that Palestinians had a mandate to develop the territory under their jurisdiction. Their attempt to establish the State of Palestine went hand in hand with their effort to survey and map their territory. Consequently, in an effort to produce maps of their own, various governmental and non-governmental organizations produced maps for both building the nation and establishing a state. Logo maps of historical Palestine served to enhance national belonging; and cartographic reconstruction of pre-1948 Palestine retraced an Arab toponomy of the land. Concurrently, maps for building the State of Palestine delineated the territory in line with international law, strengthening Palestinians’ case for territorial sovereignty. Such maps are also vital for governance, land allocation, and development. The lack of territorial sovereignty, restricted access to aerial photos at a suitable scale (due to Israeli restrictions), largely donor-funded mapping projects as well as the lack of a national mapping agency, however, encumber Palestinian mapping efforts to establish a state, that could ascertain the rights of otherwise stateless people.

scholarly journals Arab-American Faces and Voices

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-127
Author(s):  
Loukia K. Sarroub
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Detailed History ◽  
Use Of Space ◽  
Arab Immigrants ◽  
War Effort ◽  
History Of ◽  
Education Culture ◽  
Economic Ties

Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins of an ImmigrantCommunity offers a detailed history of the lives of Arab immigrants in Worcester, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Booshada conducted primary sourceresearch, interviewed nearly 200 people, and documented the immigrants’stories of their families’ lives from 1880-1915. The author’s personal andfamily connections to the community, in combination with the candid interviewexcerpts, provide a fascinating and much needed account of a peoplewho survived, thrived in, and helped to create an important part ofAmerican society.The book’s main focus is to describe, from the perspectives of elderlyimmigrants of mainly Christian Arab ancestry, their experiences in theUnited States. Booshada gives a brief history of the Arab world at the timeof their migration, and each chapter provides extensive depictions of theirneighborhoods, workplaces, traditions, education, culture, the process ofAmericanization, and the legacies that they left to their progeny.Importantly, Booshada points out the complex and complicated socioculturaland economic ties that these early sojourners, and eventually settlers,had to the Arab world and the Americas. For example, they traveledfar and wide to be with family and to make a living.The book is rich in description, especially regarding the voices ofindividuals as they remembered the hardships and successes of starting abusiness, getting married, joining the war effort at the turn of the twentiethcentury, practicing religion, or becoming American during politicallydifficult times. One of the book’s main strengths is its great detail aboutthe various streets and buildings in Worcester in which the early immigrantsinvested, occupied, or built. However, more could be said, forexample, about how property, as well as the use of space for business,church, and family, contributed to an Arab and American identity-in-themaking ...

Narrating Arab-American Transnational Identity in Leila Buck’s Hkeelee [Talk to Me]

Modern Drama ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-349
Author(s):  
Yasser Fouad Selim
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Transnational Identity ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

Hkeelee [ Talk to Me] is a one-woman show written and performed by Arab-American playwright Leila Buck, which explores the history of Buck’s family as she reminisces about the life story of her Teta (grandmother) and intertwines it with her own experiences to better understand what it means to be American with an Arab ethnic origin. This article argues that Buck’s stories act as counter-narratives: they resist the marginalization of Arab Americans and place the Arab-American identity within a transnational framework that emphasizes simultaneous attachment to the Arab world and to the United States, thereby unsettling prevailing US political discourses on citizenship and national identity. The article further proposes that Buck constructs an Arab-American transnational identity in the play by deploying the techniques and practices of the ancient Arab hakawati [storyteller] tradition, another example of cross-cultural connection and an instance of how US theatre could be enriched by an ethnic literary and performance legacy.

The Deauville Partnership with Arab Countries in Transition: Tracing the Trajectory of a Unique Format

2021 ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Vladimir I. Bartenev
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Multilateral Institutions ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Countries In Transition ◽  
The Uk ◽  
External Actors

This paper reconstructs the history of the Deauville Partnership with Arab Countries in Transition – a unique multilateral format established at the 2011 G8 Summit in Deauville, France to help the countries affected by the Arab Awakening navigate through the transition. It identifies the Partnership’s particularities, main objectives, pillars and key phases. The conclusion is drawn that this format stood out because of a regional actors’ participation, a deeper engagement of multilateral institutions and all members’ willingness to cooperate with new partners. The Partnership’s umbrella format allowed to unite stand-alone projects, to increase their legitimacy and cumulative effect. This logic manifested itself clearly under the US and the UK chairmanships (2012–2013) when the members’ interest in the Partnership and expectations were the highest, ensuring a visible progress in all dimensions supported by the Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund under the World Bank trusteeship. However, a dramatic deterioration of the global and regional geopolitical environment in 2014 hindered the intensification of efforts, and the German impulse to reinvigorate the format in 2015 did not last for long. The initial enthusiasm of partners waned, which resulted in a discrete reformatting of the Partnership in 2019, despite the new wave of protests in the Arab world. The Partnership has nonetheless had a positive effect: the Arab countries enjoyed interacting with key donors and multilateral institutions on a regular basis, while the external actors have accumulated a valuable experience of coordinating response to macro-regional challenges. Hypothetically, this experience might still be relevant today but the establishment of a novel and inclusive format with such a clear emphasis on democratic transition in the Arab World is beyond possible.

On the Decolonial Beginnings of Edward Said

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Maurice Jr M. Labelle
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Racial Difference ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
National Movement ◽  
Palestinian National Movement ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ways Of Being

This essay historicizes the formation of Edward Said's critique of imperial culture before the publication of Orientalism (1978) and examines how it framed the decolonial approach that made him world-renowned. Deeply influenced by the writings of Martinique-born psychiatrist and Algerian revolutionary Frantz Fanon, an Arab tradition of anti-orientalism, existentialist thought, and the Palestinian national movement, the New York-based intellectual reconceptualized the idea of decolonization in the late 1960s in a way that shifted contemporary thinking on social relationships between racial difference and empire from the individual and interpersonal to the collective and intercultural. Through his deep historical, epistemological, and phenomenological digs into orientalism's imperial culture and its myriad ways of being, Said made it his antiracist mandate to liberate consciousnesses from Eurocentrism and empower the universalization of decolonization.

The Algerian National Movement

Rebel Power ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Krause
Keyword(s):  
International Support ◽  
National Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Total Movement ◽  
Palestinian National Movement

This chapter analyzes the history of the Algerian national movement. It demonstrates the virtues of hegemony and the relative insignificance of unity and total movement strength. Like the Palestinian national movement, the Algerian national movement was strategically successful during hegemony (1958–1962) but largely unsuccessful during periods of fragmentation (1946–1950 and 1952–1957) and unity (1944–1945 and 1951). In 1944–1945, the Algerians were united and mobilized to a degree not seen before or since, yet that uprising failed while one a decade later, marked by a lack of unity and less total movement strength, succeeded. The chapter also illuminates the role of external states; the post-1957 FLN position as a credible hegemonic negotiator with limited potential for spoiling or sellout yielded international support and recognition, while the failure of numerous French attempts to refragment the movement forced France to concede full Algerian independence.

Migration and Modernities

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Geographic Boundaries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Migration and Modernities recovers a comparative literary history of migration by bringing together scholars from the US and Europe to explore the connections between migrant experiences and the uneven emergence of modernity. The collection initiates transnational, transcultural and interdisciplinary conversations about migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, demonstrating how mobility unsettles the geographic boundaries, temporal periodization, and racial categories we often use to organize literary and historical study. Migrants are by definition liminal, and many have existed historically in the spaces between nations, regions or ethnicities. In exploring these spaces, Migration and Modernities also investigates the origins of current debates about belonging, rights, and citizenship. Its chapters traverse the globe, revealing the experiences — real or imagined — of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century migrants, from dispossessed Native Americans to soldiers in South America, Turkish refugees to Scottish settlers. They explore the aesthetic and rhetorical frameworks used to represent migrant experiences during a time when imperial expansion and technological developments made the fortunes of some migrants and made exiles out of others. These frameworks continue to influence the narratives we tell ourselves about migration today and were crucial in producing a distinctively modern subjectivity in which mobility and rootlessness have become normative.

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