Development of the Jordanian Novel and the Emergence of Manifestations of Alienation in it (Published)
This study aims to investigate the stages of the development of the Jordanian novel and the emergence of the manifestations of alienation in it. The study hypothesizes that there are manifestations of ‘alienation’ in the Jordanian novel that entered the modernist world, which expressed, through its characters, the existential, personal, social and psychological alienation of the modern man.To achieve its goals, the study tries to confirm this hypothesis by conducting an in-depth analysis of the language, styles, techniques, and narrative forms that entered the modernist novel to express through the characters the existential, personal, social, political and psychological the alienation of the modern man. The novels that will be discussed are the following: al-Ḍaḥik (1970), by Ghālib Halsā, al-Baḥth ʿan Walid Masʿoud (1978), by Jabra Ibrāhim Jabra; Qamāt al-Zabad (1987), by Elias Farkouḥ; ʿAw … al-General la Yansa Kilabahu (1990), by Ibrāhim Nassralla; and al-Shazāya wa al-Fusayfisaʾ (1994), by Muʾnis al-Razaz, which represents the climax of experimentation in al-Razaz’s fictional works. The discussion of ‘form’ focuses on the development of the technical and linguistic forms of the novel from the traditional classical simple forms into the modernist complicated and experimental forms. The discussion of the ‘content’ focuses on the movement from traditional themes that concern the Arab culture and traditions into modernist themes, focusing mainly on the theme of ‘alienation’, its causes, its manifestations, and its psychological impacts on the Arab individual, particularly the intellectual particular, which are represented in the social, political and existential conditions that prevailed in ‘exile’ in general and in Jordan in particular, as a result of the Palestinian Nakba / Catastrophe in 1948, and the Six Days War in 1967.
Keywords: Alienation, Crisis, classical novels, exile., modernist novels
Cultural Trauma and the 9/11 Narratives by European-American and Middle- Eastern American Writers (Published)
In this paper, we argue that Jeffrey C. Alexander’s theory of Cultural Trauma provides a more fruitful framework for the study of 9/11 narratives written by both European-American writers and hyphenated Americans with Middle Eastern backgrounds. Unlike previous studies which have focused on Homi Bhabha’s notion of “interstitial perspectives,” we will focus on how Alexander’s theory helps us understand how European-American writers perceived and interpreted the crisis of 9/11, and how hyphenated American writers reacted to the dominant discourse on this tragic incident. Therefore, the present study is an endeavor to delineate the tenets of Alexander’s theory and to show how this theory helps us see the fundamental arguments and counterarguments on 9/11 offered by two different bodies of writers. Consequently, the first part of the paper will focus on the subtleties of Alexander’s theory and its ability to provide us with a framework within which we can analyze these different narratives, and the second part of this paper will put his theory of cultural trauma into practice. Using Alexander’s theory, we will offer a reading of such diverse works as DeLillo’s Falling Man and McInerny’s The Good Life as well as Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Alaa Al Aswany’s Chicago. This analysis will help us see how the white American narrative of invasion, xenophobia, fall, and rise again meets the alternative narrative of being surrounded and destructive nostalgia of writers whose home countries have been impacted by America’s war on terror after 9/11.
Keywords: 9/11 Literature, Crisis, Cultural Trauma, Diaspora Literature