"This monograph explores and investigates narratives of physical, psychological, and emotional dislocation that take place within the Arab world, approaching them as manifestations of the Arabic word ghurba, or estrangement, as a feeling and state of being. Distancing itself from the centrality of the "West" in postcolonial and Arabic literary studies, the book explores experiences of migration, displacement and cosmopolitanism that do not directly ensue from the encounter with Europe or the European other. Covering texts from the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and beyond from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, the book grounds narratives of dislocation in the political, social and cultural structures that affect the everyday lived experiences of individuals and communities. An analysis of Arabic, Turkish and English texts - encompassing fiction, memoirs and translations - highlights less visible narratives of ghurba, specifically amongst ethnic minorities and religious communities. Ultimately, the chapters contribute to a picture of the Arab world as a place of ghurba where mobile and immobile subjects, foreigners and local inhabitants alike, encounter alienation. Bringing together a diverse range of academic perspectives, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in postcolonial and comparative literary studies, history, and Arabic and Middle East studies"--

This monograph explores and investigates narratives of physical, psychological, and emotional dislocation that take place within the Arab world, approaching them as manifestations of the Arabic word ghurba, or estrangement, as a feeling and state of being. Distancing itself from the centrality of the "West" in postcolonial and Arabic literary studies, the book explores experiences of migration, displacement and cosmopolitanism that do not directly ensue from the encounter with Europe or the European other. Covering texts from the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and beyond from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, the book grounds narratives of dislocation in the political, social and cultural structures that affect the everyday lived experiences of individuals and communities. An analysis of Arabic, Turkish and English texts – encompassing fiction, memoirs and translations – highlights less visible narratives of ghurba, specifically amongst ethnic minorities and religious communities. Ultimately, the chapters contribute to a picture of the Arab world as a place of ghurba where mobile and immobile subjects, foreigners and local inhabitants alike, encounter alienation. Bringing together a diverse range of academic perspectives, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in postcolonial and comparative literary studies, history, and Arabic and Middle East studies.

This edited book offers a collection of fresh and critical essays that explore the representation of the migrant subject in modern and contemporary Arabic literature and discuss its role in shaping new forms of transcultural and transnational identities. The selection of essays in this volume offers a set of new insights on a cluster of tropes: self-discovery, alienation, nostalgia, transmission and translation of knowledge, sense of exile, reconfiguration of the relationship with the past and the identity, and the building of transnational identity. A coherent yet multi-faceted narrative of micro-stories and of transcultural and transnational Arab identities will emerge from the essays: the volume aims at reversing the traditional perspective according to which a migrant subject is a non-political actor. In contrast to many books about migration and literature, this one explores how the migrant subject becomes a specific literary trope, a catalyst of modern alienation, displacement, and uncertain identity, suggesting new forms of subjectification. Multiple representations of the migrant subject inform and perform the possibility of new post- national and transcultural individual and group identities and actively contribute to rewriting and decolonizing history.

Based on a decade of research, including in-depth interviews with many leading figures in the story, this edition is essential for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, from civil wars to the rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Since 2011, the art of the Arab uprisings has been the subject of much scholarly and popular attention. Yet the role of artists, writers and filmmakers themselves as social actors working under extraordinary conditions has been relatively neglected. Drawing on critical readings of Bourdieu's Field Theory, this book explores the production of culture in Arab social spaces in 'crisis'. In ten case studies, contributors examine a wide range of countries and conflicts, from Algeria to the Arab countries of the Gulf. They discuss among other things the impact of Western public diplomacy organisations on the arts scene in post-revolutionary Cairo and the consequences of dwindling state support for literary production in Yemen. Providing a valuable source of empirical data for researchers, the book breaks new ground in adapting Bourdieu's theory to the particularities of cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa.

As the crisis in Israel does not show any signs of abating this remarkable collection, edited by an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar and with contributions by Palestinian and Israeli women, offers a vivid and harrowing picture of the conflict and of its impact on daily life, especially as it affects women's experiences that differ significantly from those of men. The (auto)biographical narratives in this volume focus on some of the most disturbing effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a sense of dislocation that goes well beyond the geographical meaning of the word; it involves social, cultural, national and gender dislocation, including alienation from one's own home, family, community, and society. The accounts become even more poignant if seen against the backdrop of the roots of the conflict, the real or imaginary construct of a state to save and shelter particularly European Jews from the horrors of Nazism in parallel to the other side of the coin: Israel as a settler-colonial state responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian nation. Nahla Abdo is Professor of Sociology at Carleton University, Ottawa. She has published extensively on women and the state in the Middle East with special focus on Palestinian women. She contributed to the establishment of the Women's Studies Institute at Birzeit University and has found the Gender Research Unit at the Women's Empowerment Project/Gaza Community Mental Health Program in Gaza. Ronit Lentin was born in Haifa prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and has lived in Ireland since 1969. She is a well known writer of fiction and non-fiction books and is course co-ordinator of the MPhil in Ethnic Studies at the Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin. She has published extensively on the genedered link between Israel and the Shoah, feminist research methodologies, Israeli and Palestinian women's peace activism, gender and racism in Ireland.

In an updated and expanded edition of their classic, "The Arab World", Robert and Elizabeth Fernea revisit the Middle Eastern towns and cities they have known since the 1950s in light of the cataclysmic social and political upheavals that have occurred since the book's original publication. The authors reveal the human face of the Arab world as they revisit and talk with newsmakers and colleagues, old friends and new. photos.