Negotiating Racism and Sexism through Spaciotemporal Lens in Toni Morrison’s Paradise (Published)
Racism and sexism occupy a central space in the psyche of the African American in a nation where the culture of the dominant class determines the American way of life. In order to assess the place of African Americans in the larger nation space, their negotiating of racism and sexism must be placed in spacio-temporal matrix. For this purpose Lefebvre’s notion of “double illusion”, Homi K Bhabha’s concept of “hybridity”, and Edward Soja’s idea of “Thirdspace” have been applied to analyze Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. The paper is an attempt to understand how Toni Morrison represents the community life of African Americans within the larger space of the American nation in the backdrop of their negotiation of racism and sexism in both national and community levels.
Keywords: Community, Negotiation., Racism, Sexism, nation, spacio-temporal
THE USE OF ANCIENT MYTHS IN MODERN POETRY: THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS AS A CASE STUDY (Published)
The purpose of this study is to shed light on esthetic uses of Greek myth, its artistic and realistic uses, and the reasons for the allusions to it in contemporary poetry. Selected poetic texts will be analyzed for the use which some modern poets make of the legend of Sisyphus for expressing their views and for showing how they perceived its artistic value. Among these poets are Al-Sayyāb, Al-Bayātī , Adonis, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Muqāliḥ, as well as the Palestinians Aḥmad Daḥbūr, Murīd al-Barghūthī and Fārūq Muwāsī, all of whom made use of the legend in order to express both suffering and hope in the crisis of Arabs in current times, in an attempt to bring these across to the reader.
Keywords: Ancient, Myth, Sisyphus, Suffering, exile., nation, struggle, symbol