scholarly journals A Reinvented Orientalism: Myriam Harry’s Positions between Europe, Africa and the East

Viatica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maéva BOVIO ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Exceptional Case ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Literary Field

This article focuses on the writer Myriam Harry, who put the East at the heart of her literary production. As an exceptional case among travellers of her time, Harry blended different cultural universes in her books, which is particularly true of D’Autres îles de volupté where Swahili, European and Arab cultures rub shoulders. The analysis centres around the author’s systems of enunciation, revealing a contradictory position in terms of cultural identity, but also regarding the ways in which the writer tries to situate herself within the orientalist literary field.

scholarly journals Negotiating Representation: The Self and Community in The Story of a Tribal: An Autobiography

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Badakynti Nylla Iangngap ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Indian Nationalism ◽  
Hill Tribes ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Hill

Literature as a means of representation and understanding selfhood and identity was oral based for the Khasis prior to colonialism but the coming of education via the proselytising efforts of the Welsh Mission led to the development of Khasi literature by the end of the 19th century. As mode of representation, literature for Khasis became a space of negotiation and of adaptation of foreign modes of expression and representation to reclaim an identity which has been suppressed by the colonial rulers via their discursive practices. This is clearly seen in the trend of the literary production of the community. The 20th century saw a mushrooming of literary production by Khasi writers, with most of them preferring to write in their own language and about their oral tradition. Interestingly, despite this trend, the first autobiography by a Khasi, B. M. Pugh’s The Story of a Tribal (1976), was written in English. The title of the text itself alerts the readers of the highly politicised term ‘tribal’ as Pugh himself points out in his Preface and along with the fact that it is an autobiography the implication of issues of representation in terms of identity and selfhood cannot be missed. The text is also historically significant because of the author’s articulation of his understanding of identity making in the midst of the cultural and political forces of colonialism and later Indian nationalism especially because it provides a glimpse of the hill state movement that surged in the Northeast immediately after Independence. This text thus gives an eye-witness account of the struggle that the hill tribes of Northeast faced to maintain their political and cultural identity.

Blogging a Revolution: From Utopia to Dystopia

2019 ◽  
pp. 190-214
Author(s):  
Teresa Pepe
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Important Phenomenon ◽  
Political Events

The chapter discusses the relation between these blogs and the events of the 25th January uprising. It recounts how bloggers imagined a revolution in their writing long before the actual political events of 2011; how they relate to the uprisings in their blog; how blogs have evolved in the years after 2011, and what is left of the blog in Arabic literary production. Here it shows that blogging continues to be an important phenomenon in the Arab world, even though blogging practices have changed following the spread of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, the blog continues to impact Arabic print literature, in terms of young authors’ access to the literary field, their experimentation with language and genre, and the importance of the visual. The novel Istikhdam al-Haya (Using Life, 2014) by Ahmed Naji, mentioned before, and Youssef Rakha’s novel Bawlu (Paulo, 2016) are analysed to discuss the link between the blog, the dystopic novel and new literary styles in Egypt.

scholarly journals Women and Words in Saudi Arabia

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-276
Author(s):  
Sherifa Zuhur
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Muslim Woman ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Saudi Women

Arebi embarks on cultural analysis via the literary work of ninecontemporary Saudi women writers in this thoughtful and provocativediscussion of gender and literary production at a significant historicaljuncture for Saudi women. The import of this discussion for and aboutMuslim women, by a Muslim woman, exists not only in its particularcountry context but also in the troubling debate now raging over personalexpression and commitment to "feminist" reform versus Muslimperceptions of a continuing ideological invasion that is heavily influencedby western political hegemony. I need not even mention the nameof Taslima Shahin for readers to acknowledge some degree of anguishin our sharp disagreements over the issue of gender versus culture.The voices of these female Saudi writers range from the avant-gardeto conservative "journalese," and Arebi contends that they illustrate thecomplex nature of female discourse in an Arab-Islamic context. However,she seems to have backed into asserting a unique and nonfeminist positionfor Saudi women, using such slogans as "quality not equality," althoughthe subjects of her study often write otherwise. Arebi arrives at this analyticalquandary by a similar route that has been followed by other sincerescholars and observers. As Leila Ahmed commented some years ago:It is only when one considers that one's sexual identity alone (andsome would not accept even this) is more inextricably oneselfthan one's cultural identity, that one can perhaps appreciate howexcruciating is the plight of the Middle Eastern feminist caughtbetween those two opposing loyalties, forced almost to choosebetween betrayal and betrayal ...

Literary Agency

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura B McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Literary Agent ◽  
Big Four ◽  
Literary Agents ◽  
Aesthetic Judgments

Abstract This essay is one part documentation and one part provocation, with a simple goal: to acknowledge the agency of the literary agent. There is no figure more significant to contemporary literary production and less studied by scholars than the agent. Drawing on ethnographic interviews conducted with 28 literary agents over the course of four years, I argue that agents shape the form and content of contemporary fiction by acting as administrators of the logic of the marketplace, conditioning their clients to write in and for the international multimedia conglomerates known as the Big Four. I take the agent’s list to be one of the central organizing heuristics of the contemporary literary field and read the list of one agent, Nicole Aragi, to examine what I call “corporate taste”: personal aesthetic judgments carefully calibrated to anticipate and respond to the demands of publishing conglomerates.Agents calibrate their aesthetic judgments to anticipate and respond to the demands of publishers and the market, becoming administrators of the logic of the corporation, thus shaping the form and content of contemporary fiction.

Jewish Assimilation: The Case of Chinese Jews

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Song Nai Rhee
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Exceptional Case ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Throughout the past two millennia or more the Jews of Diaspora have persistently maintained their religious and cultural identity in spite of many vicissitudes. Also, as manifested in Jewish history, where favorable conditions exist, politically and economically, Jewish communities have rarely experienced what may be described as a complete assimilation into their surrounding sociocultural milieu. An exceptional case, however, has been noted in China, where a once prosperous and burgeoning community of Jews did indeed experience that fate.

Contemporary Crime Fiction, Cultural Prestige, and the Literary Field

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Eric Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global View ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Cultural Status

Crime fiction laboured for many years under a persistent foundational anxiety over its cultural status. However, the cultural landscape has changed considerably in recent years, and many critics have identified a transformation in crime fiction's positioning as central to this transformation. This essay examines this claim by first looking at several ways in which crime fiction works well with a number of recent attempts to described key tendencies in contemporary literary production including its global view, its interest in the past, and its interstitial nature. It then locates crime fiction within the process known in Russian formalist terms as ‘canonization of the junior branch’ by which lower-status genres influence or indeed replace higher-status genres. Finally, in an attempt to trace the extent of this infiltration, the essay examines book reviews, festivals, and literary prizes for evidence that crime fiction has indeed achieved improved status both within a range of national cultures and internationally.

scholarly journals Textual Representations of Chicana Identity in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo or Puro Cuento

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Alonso Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Chicana Literature ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Textual Representations ◽  
Identidad Cultural ◽  
Female Consciousness ◽  
Textual Representation ◽  
Cultural Subjectivity ◽  
Literatura Chicana

Resumen:El principal objetivo de este estudio es el de analizar la representación textual de los distintos rasgos distintivos presentes en la producción literaria Chicana en Caramelo or Puro Cuento de Sandra Cisneros, publicada en 2002. Para este propósito se tendrán en consideración cuestiones relativas a la subjetividad cultural, la naturaleza femenina, la historia, el racismo y el machismo, así como aspectos lingüísticos con el fin de explorar algunos elementos significantes en esta obra de Cisneros que podría ser considerada como un ejemplo de conciencia femenina en la literatura Chicana.Palabras clave: literatura chicana, identidad cultural, nueva mestiza, folklore mexicano.Título en español: Representaciones textuales de identidad chicana en Caramelo o Puro Cuento de Sandra Cisneros.Abstract:The main purpose of this study is to analyse the textual representation of the various distinctive features present within Chicana literary production in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo or Puro Cuento, published in 2002. In order to accomplish this, issues such as cultural subjectivity, female nature, history, racism and machismo, as well as linguistic aspects will be taken into consideration in order to explore some signicant elements within Cisneros’s work, which could be considered as being an example of a new female consciousness in Chicana literature.Keywords: Chicana literature, cultural identity, new mestiza, Mexican folklore.

Marital Stability Among Jewish and Mixed Couples Following Immigration to Israel From the Former Soviet Union

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Lavee ◽  
Ludmila Krivosh
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Marital Stability ◽  
Marital Instability ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
Marital Outcomes ◽  
Jewish Immigrants

This research aims to identify factors associated with marital instability among Jewish and mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish) couples following immigration from the former Soviet Union. Based on the Strangeness Theory and the Model of Acculturation, we predicted that non-Jewish immigrants would be less well adjusted personally and socially to Israeli society than Jewish immigrants and that endogamous Jewish couples would have better interpersonal congruence than mixed couples in terms of personal and social adjustment. The sample included 92 Jewish couples and 92 ethnically-mixed couples, of which 82 couples (40 Jewish, 42 mixed) divorced or separated after immigration and 102 couples (52 Jewish, 50 ethnically mixed) remained married. Significant differences were found between Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants in personal adjustment, and between endogamous and ethnically-mixed couples in the congruence between spouses in their personal and social adjustment. Marital instability was best explained by interpersonal disparity in cultural identity and in adjustment to life in Israel. The findings expand the knowledge on marital outcomes of immigration, in general, and immigration of mixed marriages, in particular.

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