Islam on the Street

Islam on the Street

Author: Muḥsin Jāsim Mūsawī

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780742562066

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Islam on the Street deals with the popular side of Islam, as described not only in tracts and manuals written by Sufi shaykhs and Islamist thinkers from among the more militant groups in Islam, but also in writings by other, more secular thinkers who have also influenced public opinion. A scholar of Arabic literature, Muhsin al-Musawi explains the growing rift that has occurred between the secular intellectual--the forerunner of Arab and Islamic modernity since the late nineteenth century--and the upsurge of Islamic fervor in the street, at the grassroots level, and what these secular intellectuals can do to reconnect with the masses. Using some of the most important Arabic and Islamic poetry, prose, and fiction to come out of the twentieth century, Al-Musawi provides context for the complex images of Arab and Islamic culture given by the various social, religious, and political groups, providing the motivations. Readers interested in the influence of religion and secularism within modern Islamic Arabic literature will find that the author addresses the presence of Islam and Sufism in ways that secular commentators have been incapable of doing.


Interrogating Secularism

Interrogating Secularism

Author: Danielle Haque

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2019-09-25

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0815654774

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Interrogating Secularism is a call to rethink binary categories of “religion” and “secularism” in contemporary Arab American fiction and art. While most studies that explore the traffic between literature and issues of secularism emphasize how canonical texts naturalize and reinforce secular values, Interrogating Secularism approaches this nexus through novels written by and about ethnic and religious minorities. Haque juxtaposes accounts of secular experience in the writing of Arab Anglophone authors such as Mohja Kahf, Rabih Alameddine, Khaled Mattawa, Laila Lalami, and Rawi Hage, with Arab and Muslim artists such as Ninar Esber, Mounir Fatmi, Hasan Elahi, and Emily Jacir. Looking at multiple genres and modes of aesthetic production, including AIDS narratives, visual art, and digital media, Haque explores how their conventions are used to subvert the ideals tied to secularism and the various anxieties and investments that support secularism as a premise. These authors and artists critique Western iterations of secular thought in spaces such as art exhibits, airports, borders, and literary discourses to capture how the secularism thesis reproduces the exclusivity it intends to remedy.


Immigrant Narratives

Immigrant Narratives

Author: Wail S. Hassan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-04

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0199354979

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Drawing upon postcolonial, translation, and minority discourse theory, Immigrant Narratives investigates how key Arab American and Arab British writers have described their immigrant experiences, and in so doing acted as mediators and interpreters between cultures, and how they have forged new identities in their adopted countries.


Formations of the Secular

Formations of the Secular

Author: Talal Asad

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2003-02-03

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0804783098

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“A dark but brilliantly original work . . . one of the most important books on religion and the modern in recent years.” —H-Net Reviews Opening with the provocative query “what might an anthropology of the secular look like?” this book explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities and attitudes in the modern West and the Middle East. Talal Asad proceeds to dismantle commonly held assumptions about the secular and the terrain it allegedly covers. He argues that while anthropologists have oriented themselves to the study of the “strangeness of the non-European world” and to what are seen as non-rational dimensions of social life (things like myth, taboo, and religion),the modern and the secular have not been adequately examined. The conclusion is that the secular cannot be viewed as a successor to religion, or be seen as on the side of the rational. It is a category with a multi-layered history, related to major premises of modernity, democracy, and the concept of human rights. This book will appeal to anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars, as well as scholars working on modernity. “A difficult if stunningly eloquent book, a response both elusive and forthright to the many shelves of ‘books on terrorism’ which this country’s trade publishers are rushing into print.” —Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature “This wonderfully illuminating book should be read alongside the author’s Genealogies of Religion.” —Religion “One of the most interesting scholars of religious writing today.” —Christian Scholar’s Review “Asad’s brilliant study remains a defining piece of intellectual and scholarly contribution for all of those interested in exploring the religious and the secular in the modern era.” —The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences


Modern Arab American Fiction

Modern Arab American Fiction

Author: Steven Salaita

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2011-04-13

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 081565104X

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Within the spectrum of American literary traditions, Arab American literature is relatively new. Writing produced by Americans of Arab origin is mainly a product of the twentieth century and only started to flourish in the past thirty years. While this young but thriving literature varies widely in content and style, it emerges from a common community and within a specific historical, political, and cultural context. In Modern Arab American Fiction, Salaita maps out the landscape of this genre as he details rather than defines the last century of Arab American fiction. Exploring the works of such best-selling authors as Rabih Alameddine, Mohja Kahf, Laila Halaby, Diana Abu-Jaber, Alicia Erian, and Randa Jarrar, Salaita highlights the development of each author’s writing and how each has influenced Arab American fiction. He examines common themes including the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–90, the representation and practice of Islam in the United States, social issues such as gender and national identity in Arab cultures, and the various identities that come with being Arab American. Combining the accessibility of a primer with in-depth critical analysis, Modern Arab American Fiction is suitable for a broad audience, those unfamiliar with the subject area, as well as scholars of the literature.


A Companion to Multiethnic Literature of the United States

A Companion to Multiethnic Literature of the United States

Author: Gary Totten

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2023-12-27

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 1119652537

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Provides the most comprehensive collection of scholarship on the multiethnic literature of the United States A Companion to the Multiethnic Literature of the United States is the first in-depth reference work dedicated to the histories, genres, themes, cultural contexts, and new directions of American literature by authors of varied ethnic backgrounds. Engaging multiethnic literature as a distinct field of study, this unprecedented volume brings together a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches to offer analyses of African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian American, Jewish American, and Arab American literatures, among others. Chapters written by a diverse panel of leading contributors explore how multi-ethnic texts represent racial, ethnic, and other identities, center the lives and work of the marginalized and oppressed, facilitate empathy with the experiences of others, challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, and other hateful rhetoric, and much more. Informed by recent and leading-edge methodologies within the field, the Companion examines how theoretical approaches to multiethnic literature such as cultural studies, queer studies, ecocriticism, diaspora studies, and posthumanism inform literary scholarship, pedagogy, and curricula in the US and around the world. Explores the national, international, and transnational contexts of US ethnic literature Addresses how technology and digital access to archival materials are impacting the study, reception, and writing of multiethnic literature Discusses how recent developments in critical theory impact the reading and interpretation of multiethnic US literature Highlights significant themes and major critical trends in genres including science fiction, drama and performance, literary nonfiction, and poetry Includes coverage of multiethnic film, history, and culture as well as newer art forms such as graphic narrative and hip-hop Considers various contexts in multiethnic literature such as politics and activism, immigration and migration, and gender and sexuality A Companion to the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States is an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers studying all aspects of the subject


Arab in America

Arab in America

Author: Toufic El Rassi

Publisher: Last Gasp

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9780867196733

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Through his own life story, from childhood through is life as an adult, El Rassi illustrates the prejudices and discrimination Arabs and Muslims experience daily in American society. He contends with ignorant teachers, racist neighbours, bullying classmates and a growing sense of alienation. He also examines the roles that media and popular culture play and with examples from film and news media, he shows how difficult it is to have an Arab identity in a society saturated with anti-Arab messages.


Sajjilu Arab American

Sajjilu Arab American

Author: Louise Cainkar

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2022-08-04

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0815655223

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Both a summative description of the field and an exploration of new directions, this multidisciplinary reader addresses issues central to the fields of Arab American, US Muslim, and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) American studies. Taking a broad conception of the Americas, this collection simultaneously registers and critically reflects upon major themes in the field, including diaspora, migration, empire, race and racialization, securitization, and global South solidarity. The collection will be essential reading for scholars in Arab/SWANA American studies, Asian American studies, and race, ethnicity, and Indigenous studies, now and well into the future. Contributors include: Evelyn Alsultany, Carol W. N. Fadda, Hisham D. Aidi, Nadine Naber, Therí Pickens, Steven Salaita, Ella Shohat and Sarah M.A. Gualtieri.


American Arabesque

American Arabesque

Author: Jacob Rama Berman

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2012-06-11

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0814789501

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Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series American Arabesque examines representations of Arabs, Islam and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them today. Moving from the period of America's engagement in the Barbary Wars through the Holy Land travel mania in the years of Jacksonian expansion and into the writings of romantics such as Edgar Allen Poe, the book argues that not only were Arabs and Muslims prominently featured in nineteenth-century literature, but that the differences writers established between figures such as Moors, Bedouins, Turks and Orientals provide proof of the transnational scope of domestic racial politics. Drawing on both English and Arabic language sources, Berman contends that the fluidity and instability of the term Arab as it appears in captivity narratives, travel narratives, imaginative literature, and ethnic literature simultaneously instantiate and undermine definitions of the American nation and American citizenship.


War Stories

War Stories

Author: Jeremy Bowen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-09-27

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1471114740

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Having joined the BBC as a trainee in 1984, Jeremy Bowen first became a foreign correspondent four years later. He had witnessed violence already, both at home and abroad, but it wasn't until he covered his first war -- in El Salvador -- that he felt he had arrived. Armed with the fearlessness of youth he lived for the job, was in love with it, aware of the dangers but assuming the bullets and bombs were meant for others. In 2000, however, after eleven years in some of the world's most dangerous places, the bullets came too close for comfort, and a close friend was killed in Lebanon. This, and then the birth of his first child, began a process of reassessment that culminated in the end of the affair. Now, in his extraordinarily gripping and thought-provoking new book, he charts his progress from keen young novice whose first reaction to the sound of gunfire was to run towards it to the more circumspect veteran he is today. It will also discuss the changes that have taken place in the ways in which wars are reported over the course of his career, from the Gulf War to Bosnia, Afghanistan to Rwanda.