...No Place Like Home Edward Said's States is an excerpt from his book After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives. It's a story about Palestine, once a country, but now spread out into a million pieces of the people that once called it home. The pieces being more of memories of a time when Palestinians could be who they are, not a scattered and forgotten people. They all face a new struggle, a struggle to find their identity. "Identity- who we are, where we come from, what we are- is difficult to maintain in exile. Most other people take their identity for granted. Not the Palestinian, who is required to show proofs of identity more or less constantly." (Page 546) Said, being Palestinian himself, tells us this story in what was called a "hybrid" type of writing. He does this by letting the pictures take precedence in telling his story but then describes each picture by going back and forth from a history point of view, to his own recollections of his childhood. The way he describes each picture makes you feel as if you were at one time in that picture and can feel an emotional connection to it. Through each photo, we get a really sense of what it is like to be Palestinian, to have it all taken away and how they started new. The way Said puts the story together without any time frame, is an example of why his writing style was described as a hybrid. He will start with describing a picture by telling us facts about his country and then interrupt himself, like he's actually have...
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...Palestinian Persuasion Authors utilize a variety of literally techniques to convey feelings and ideas. Edward Said uses many different strategies to represent the Palestinian people throughout his essay “States”. In creating awareness of the Palestinian struggle Said employs numerous distinct techniques and strategies to convey his message and elicit emotion from the reader. Said uses photographs along with his own interpretations throughout the text to convey emotion to the reader in a very vivid way. These pictures display great depth into the emotional connection Said feels towards the Palestinian people along with his compassion of a call to action. The unique way that he displays the pictures along with a personal explanation creates a partnership that together illustrates and teaches the reader about the struggles of Palestine in a way that images cannot do alone. In addition to the an image of a nomadic man sitting on a modern chair in the village of Tel Sheva, Said writes, “He seems unsettled, poised for departure. Now what? Now where? All at once it is out transience and impermanence that our visibility expresses, for we can be seen as figures forced to push on to another house, village, or region. Just as we once were taken from one “habitat” to a new one, we can be moved again.” (543) These powerful words are woven into the image in way that conveys Said’s personal interpretation, which forces the reader to see through the Palestinians eyes. The message Said sends...
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...Said, E 1982, ‘from “Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community”’ rpt. in Harrison C & Wood, P (eds) 1992, Art in Theory. 1900- 1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK, pp.1086-1088. Classen, C 1996, ‘Sugar Cane, Coca-Cola and Hypermarkets: Consumption and Surrealism in the Argentine Northwest’ in Howes D (ed), Cross Cultural Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities, Routledge, London, pp.39-54 plus notes pp.195-208. Edward Said (November 1935 – September 2003) is a Palestinian born in Jerusalm. He is university professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University and an influential cultural author (Said 1982, p1086). His book Orientalism (1978) addresses his ideas on Orientalism in his own words, a Western style of Eastern cultures (Said 1982, p1086). His work generally ties to the imperialist societies and represents the issue of politics. In 1983, he published ‘from “Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community”’. Constance Classen (1957 –) is an award-winning writer and researcher based in Montreal, Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from McGill University and is the author of various essays and books on the cultural life of the senses such as ‘Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures (Routledge, 1993)’. In 1996, she published ‘Sugar Cane, Coca-Cola and Hypermarkets: Consumption and Surrealism in the Argentine Northwest’ (Canadianicon 2012). Those two readings provide...
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...a grasp in order to define their weaker counterparts. Post colonialism is the study of exclusion, denigration ‘othering’ and resistance which takes place under systems of colonial control where countries struggle to deal with colonial legacy. When one looks at the text Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M Coetzee, the ideology of Orientalism and Mimicry unfolds and speaks of the unspeakable encounters of the Empire as opposed to the Barbarians thus, creating the distinctions between the empire and the colony. Therefore, it is the purpose of this essay to justify how the foretold philosophers theory, excavate understanding of Morrison and Coetzee’s text. Orientalism as according to Edward Said “Orientalism is the product of circumstances that are fundamentally, indeed, radically fractious.” To simply state, orientalism is the result of circumstances that revolves around misunderstanding of another inferior race that however results in anger and prejudices. This is evident when we look closely at Coetzee’s novel where there is an unnamed Magistrate who serves as the radical self and the other. As the novel progresses, the natives do not fit into the label ‘Barbarians’ despite the fact they live on the boundary, uncivilized in the face of the Empire, barbaric and inferior. These barbarians are then blamed for things that they do not even commit and are tortured on the terms of the command of the Colonel Joll. For instance, “Those pitiable prisoners you brought in – are they the enemy...
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...sensuality. Exaggeration and imagination together with a range of both positive and negative stereotypes connected to popular prejudices have been essential to these views. Encountering the East has been significant for the self-image of the West producing identities ranging from decadent European modernity to concepts of cultural, racial and moral superiority. (Clarke 1997, 3–4. See also Pieterse 1992 and Hottola 1999.) In his highly celebrated but also provoking book Orientalism [2], Edward Said (1935– 2003) embarks on describing a long European tradition ”of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience.” This tradition Said calls Orientalism [3]. Said concentrates mainly on French and British Orientalism of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and, eventually, on contemporary American Orientalism. Said’s analysis of Orientalist discourse draws on various academic and non-academic sources, and the Orient of Said’s focus is limited mainly to Arab Muslim areas in the Middle East. Said was a part of a rather critical academic conjuncture around the turn of...
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...Avoiding a historical discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict might be advantageous for now given this paper is meant to argue, while comparing and contrasting the two nations, that resolution to the conflict in contemporary times can not be achieved so easily, as simple as it may seem to supporters on both sides of “the cause”. The situation between these two highly conflicted states is complicated by elements that must be addressed. These warring nations have a rough history tracing back all the way to before the time of the Islamic Caliphate in the 7th century[1]. However, “putting aside their differences” is an idea that does not seem as practical as it sounds. It is my assumption that both states are threatened by and threatening to each other so long as they act out of religious intolerance. Struggling to determine which side is more or less at fault only further complicates the issue and does little to actually help resolve the conflicts. It is my argument that, instead of a resolution coming externally, the struggle must begin with issues of cultural and ethnic identity at the state level and among its constituents. This concern reinforces the necessity to understand one’s own culture before the door can be opened to allow for improvement and more favorable conditions on both sides of the conflict. It would be unreasonable to suggest that there is a resolution within arms reach. However complicated the nature of the conflict between Israel and Palestine...
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...before and after the attacks on 9/11 and this was inspired by the movie, American Sniper, and the backlash and the response that the movie got and it begs the question why did people react the way they did and way they did it. After the movie came out, the people who saw it had a strong opinion about it, either that it was a patriotic movie or that it was offensive to Muslims. Many Americans have grown up in a post 9/11 world and don’t remember what the world was like before that fateful day and as a consequence have grown up with the “War on Terror” and trying to find the people responsible for the attacks on that infamous day in September. After that everything changed, 9/11 was the worst attack on American soil in the history of the United States and with that comes a great deal of hatred towards those who stand responsible. Fast-forward to present day and we can still see the effects of 9/11 and the hatred has gotten worse. Now Americans are blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few and in a way there is a religious war going on. There is a great need for the American people to be educated on this topic. There is a lack of education when it comes to 9/11, Islam and the Middle East in general, and what many American know is that America was fighting a war in the Middle East trying to find the people responsible for 9/11 and it has only escalated, since then it has evolved and now there is ISIS, which is a byproduct of Al-Qaeda. Knowing all of this, why are Muslim people...
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...ca/index.php/TC 14 Literary Translation and (or as?) Conflict between the Arab World and the West Mustapha Ettobi McGill University Introduction In 1990, Edward Said wrote an article entitled “Embargoed Literature” which was published in The Nation. In it, he argues that Arabic literature is “embargoed” in the West even if one of its most prominent figures, the Egyptian novelist and short story writer Naguib Mahfouz, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. Said spoke of some “singular” reasons for this situation: [...] of all the major world literatures, Arabic remains relatively unknown and unread in the West for reasons that are unique, and I think remarkable at a time when tastes here [the United States] for the non-Western are more developed than before and, even more compelling, contemporary Arabic literature is at a particularly interesting juncture (Said 372). Although Said’s article was well received by Arab and non Arab critics and researchers (such as Richard Jacquemond, 1992), its main argument was also challenged by other critics and scholars such as Peter Clark (2000). The latter maintained that Arabic literature in translation has significantly progressed since 1988 and has been more reviewed and studied than before. In this article, I do not intend to either defend or question Said’s view but would like to examine an important issue which is central to his article: the impact of geopolitical conflicts on literary translation. I will be looking...
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...is a result of politics and not the religious differences. Political ambitions have always been at the forefront of the existing conflict because different countries have always had diverse ambitions of controlling the rest of the world. A key moment in the history of the East was the deal that was made by the British at the end of the Second World War concerning the people of Palestine. The establishment of Israel in 1948 further escalated tensions and conflicts with the west, and the problems that exist today, almost have nothing to do with religion (Tausch, 2009). The world events of the past decade and a half, clearly show the origins of the conflict that exists between the west and the east. The invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003 is a perfect example, which shows that the conflict that exists is not a religious war. The decision to invade Iraq was made on the assumption that the then leader of the country, Saddam Hussein, was...
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...In Search of Her: A Postcolonial/ Feminist Enquiry into the Identity of Indian Woman Kochurani Abraham “The home was the principal site for expressing the spiritual quality of the nation’s culture and women must take the main responsibility of protecting and nurturing this quality. No matter what the changes in the external conditions of life for women, they must not lose their essentially spiritual (ie feminine) virtues; they must not, in other words, become essentially westernized.” - Partha Chatterjee, “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question”* “What was gradually and carefully constituted, brick by brick, in the interaction between colonialism and nationalism is now so deeply embedded in the consciousness of the middle classes that ideas about the past have assumed the status of revealed truths…It has led to a narrow and limiting circle in which the image of Indian womanhood has become, both a shackle and a rhetorical device that nevertheless functions as a historical truth.” - Uma Chakravarti “Whatever happened to the Vedic Dasi?: Orientalism, Nationalism and a Script for the Past.”* Who/where is the Indian woman? Since this conference focuses on the theme “Identity, Difference and...
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...essay will present a postcolonial study of how Eastern identity and Western identity clash in The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, the Pakistani- American novelist, and make the character of the protagonist a glocal one, (A mixture of global and local), a term newly coined by Postcolonial scholars to show the ever clashing mixture of global and local dualities in immigrants’ personalities. The basis for this research paper is the postcolonial theories of Edward Said, Fanon and Homi K. Bhabha. The aim is to question simply and sardonically the human cost of empire building, moreover it is discussed how the people in a totally alien culture are faced with different cultural predicaments, dilemmas as well as contradictions threatening their identity. Identity is supposed to be stable, while as this novel indicates, it is more of glocal identity which is at risk due to the cultural conflicts, as a result of which identity and ethnicity are subjected to change for the benefit of the hegemony. In line with Edward Said’s: “the East writes back” it is shown how this novel is a reaction to the discourse of colonization from the Pakistani side (which stands for the East) and welcomes de-colonization. Moreover it reflects the laments of the author for the terrorist label ascribed to Muslims, in terms of globalization, supported by the hegemony, being interpreted as * Email: dhayati@iaulamerd.ac.ir receipt: 14-8-2010 Acceptance:21-2-2011 East meets West: a Study of Dual Identity...
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...UNDERSTANDING THE ARYANS A roadmap for students and beginners Burjor Avari (Manchester Metropolitan University) It is a known fact of history that the British curiosity and interest in Indian cultures increased phenomenally after the East India Company came to acquire a territorial hold on Bengal from the late 1750s onwards. Their paramountcy over India’s millions depended upon their thorough understanding of the cultures of the sub-continent which required a mastery in its languages.[i] The small circle of dedicated and assiduous students of India’s languages included Sir William Jones, the eminent jurist and polymath who resided in India between 1783 and 1794.[ii] After studying Sanskrit for just under three years he observed, in 1786, that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin and Old Persian had all descended from an original speech. His observation has proved correct; and, since his time, most learned philological opinion has accepted that, in terms of language classifications, the common source of these tongues was what is now called proto-Indo-European. Its geographical focus was presumed to be the area around the Caspian Sea. It is also generally accepted that the eastern branch of the Indo-European family of languages is known as the Indo-Iranian whose first speakers called themselves Aryans. Whether the Aryans, speaking some variety of Indo-European languages, invaded or migrated into Iran and India from their original trans-Caspian homeland or...
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...University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2010 Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context Leah Rang University of Tennessee - Knoxville, lrang@utk.edu Recommended Citation Rang, Leah, "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/655 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisi Schoenbach, Bill Hardwig Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council:...
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...Beginning theory An introduction to literary and cultural theory Second edition Peter Barry © Peter Barry 1995, 2002 ISBN: 0719062683 Contents Acknowledgements - page x Preface to the second edition - xii Introduction - 1 About this book - 1 Approaching theory - 6 Slop and think: reviewing your study of literature to date - 8 My own 'stock-taking' - 9 1 Theory before 'theory' - liberal humanism - 11 The history of English studies - 11 Stop and think - 11 Ten tenets of liberal humanism - 16 Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis some key moments - 21 Liberal humanism in practice - 31 The transition to 'theory' - 32 Some recurrent ideas in critical theory - 34 Selected reading - 36 2 Structuralism - 39 Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs Signs of the fathers - Saussure - 41 Stop and think - 45 The scope of structuralism - 46 What structuralist critics do - 49 Structuralist criticism: examples - 50 Stop and think - 53 Stop and think - 55 39 Stop and think - 57 Selected reading - 60 3 Post-structuralism and deconstruction - 61 Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism - 61 Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet - 65 Stop and think - 68 Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences - 70 What post-structuralist critics do - 73 Deconstruction: an example - 73 Selected reading - 79 4 Postmodernism - 81 What is postmodernism? What was modernism? -...
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...characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while staying in the third person. Gustave Flaubert pioneered this style in Madame Bovary, as in this passage: “Sometimes she thought that these were after all the best days of her life, the honeymoon, so-called.” Objective narration: A style in which the narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters but offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states....
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