Digital Commons Network^™

Daughters And Fathers In Memoirs: Najla Said And Fatima Bhutto, Yasmina Bakry

Theses and Dissertations

The father-daughter relationship has always been crucial in shaping the identity of the daughter. Daughters inevitably inherit their fathers’ personal trauma, and in the case of the daughters of activists, national trauma as well. Throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, daughters struggle to depoliticize their famous fathers, as well as assert their individuality amidst the overshadowing activism of their fathers and conflictual history of their nations. To heal the daughters’ identity fissures, they embark on a journey to chronicle memories of their fathers throughout their lives and critically assess their fathers’ cultural, social and political heritage and identity. This thesis will …

The Romani People In The European Cultural Imagination: Alexander Pushkin, Prosper Mérimée And Virginia Woolf, Nadya Siyam

Theses and Dissertations

Scholarly literature on Roma is scarce compared to other racial groups as a lack of academic interest, financial limitations, and other social and political factors has constrained it. This resulted in a cross-cultural circulation of misinformation about Romani people and the reproduction of Romani myths and stereotypes in fiction. This project aims to analyze selected literary works on Gypsies from three Eastern and Western European countries and two periods to unpack the cultural and political roots of Romani literary misrepresentation. This research employs a range of theoretical frameworks chosen to put the Gypsy protagonists under maximum spotlight without unnecessary repetition, …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Interpretatio Islamica And The Unraveling Of The Ancient Sabian Mysteries, Maurice Hines

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis makes some bold claims about the identity of the Qur’anic Sabians (Ṣābi’ūn) and their symbiotic relationship with various Near Eastern religions including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Thrice mentioned in the Qur’an, they clung to an ancient religion - or perhaps the most ancient – that spanned the entire Eastern hemisphere and provided not only the structural foundations of human civilizations, but also their religious, philosophical, and intellectual foundations. However, their creed had undergone a variety of changes over time including a shift in the conception of God from a personal to a transcendent deity, the worship …

A Captive’S Subjectivity, Rebeca J. Blemur

Theses and Dissertations

The project discusses the effects of Haiti’s colonization as the space transitions from Hispaniola to Saint-Domingue and later to the free state of Haiti. This is done by studying the concept of the right to conquest and the absurdities that exist around the first appearances of international law. The project focuses on the pre-revolutionary period starting around the 1750s, the revolutionary period that began in the 1790s, the French oligarchical class’s attempt for social equality, and the war for ultimate colonial conquest between the French, Spanish, and British. The project will display how legally objectifying a human being manifests subjects …

Waqf In Transition: Tracing Local Institutional Change During The British Mandate In Palestine, Zachary Murray

Theses and Dissertations

The British Mandate’s actions of state-building in Palestine were informed by a Zionist-Western modernist envisioned past of Palestine. This state-building ideology was embedded within much of the bureaucracy of the Mandate’s system and infringed on numerous Palestinian institutions such as Waqf. Waqf was disenfranchised in particular through the implementation of urban development programs, like town planning and archaeological regimes, which sought to support the British-Zionist recasting of Palestine.

This thesis aims to show how the British’s ideology of Palestine informed the Mandate’s internal polices and actions which infringed on the rights of waqf. This was done through two axes of …

Cities Of God Under Occupation: Settler Colonial Practices And Pacification In The Favelas Of Rio De Janeiro And The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Amanda Pimenta Da Silva

Theses and Dissertations

The 2002 film ‘City of God’ tells an anecdotal story of violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and is a reminder that the societies we tend to take for granted can actually be a luxury. The film portrays the daily life of the peripheries of Rio and its relation with drug trafficking, crime, and poverty, and how it has deteriorated into a war zone so dangerous that anyone risk being shot to death. Thousands of miles away from the Brazilian slums there is another so-called city of God, or the city chosen by God to be the home’s …

A Tale Of Two And A Half Mummies: An Intrusive Burial From The Tomb Of Karabasken (Tt 391), Hayley Ruth Goddard

Theses and Dissertations

In 2014, the South Asasif Conservation Project, directed by Elena Pischikova, discovered a previously unknown side chamber in the tomb of Karabasken (TT 391), a proto-Kushite tomb located in the South Asasif. Designated as Side Chamber 1A, it contained an intact burial assemblage. The contents of the tomb, all of which had suffered damage caused by repeated flooding, included three coffins which each contained a mummy. One of the mummies was most unusual, consisting of just the upper half of the body of a young man which was truncated at the waist.

This study is the first to assess and …

Zinā In The Criminal Legislation Act (1999-2000): An Evaluation Of The Implication For Muslim Women's Right In Nigeria, Paul Orerhime Akpomie

Theses and Dissertations

The research engages in an exploration of human rights in Islam. Human rights issues are then contrasted with international law positions. The data gotten is then used for investigating women’s human rights issues in Shariʾa penal tradition regarding zinā (adultery) in Nigeria. The re-emergence of Sharia penal codes adopted by 12 Northern states in Nigeria in 1999 as an operative Islamic law has sparked concerns about rulings amounting to stoning to death in several cases of zinā. These events raised concerns about Shariʾa penal traditions’ legality and relationship with other legal traditions operational in Nigeria, a secular political space. …

The Shirt Of Nessus: International Debt As A Tool Of Hegemonic Control, Omar Hamed Ghannam

Theses and Dissertations

International debt has been a fixture of the global economy and state financing for centuries. The economic logic of accruing international debt and its management is rarely questioned in the literature, even as sovereign debt crises abound. These crises offer a point of examination, re-assessment, and negotiations concerning allocating the burdens. This paper aims to study these debt crises to interrogate the issue of international debt, the depoliticized economic mantras that govern it, their validity, sincerity, and the political and social implications on the indebted polity. This is done by looking at the origins of debt crises, and examining how …

Reinterpreting Medieval Islamic Autobiography: The Case Of Al-SakhāWī’S Irshād (1428/831 Ah - 1497/902 Ah), Maha Shawki

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis research aims to contribute to the study of medieval Arabic autobiographies by examining the autobiography of one of fifteenth-century Mamluk scholars, Muḥammad Ibn ʿabd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī (1428/831 AH - 1497/902 AH).

The objective of this research is to understand more about the art of writing an autobiography during the late Mamluk period and how it relates to broader Islamic tradition. This will be done by considering al-Sakhāwī’s autobiography in the context of other similar concurrent texts written during the late Mamluk period to detect possible links and investigate how a medieval autobiography can be shaped by the character …

Printing Devotion: Sufi Books And Their Transregional Networks In An Age Of Print, Mariam Elashmawy

Theses and Dissertations

The production of printed books in the Muslim world is a story that encompasses an array of actors, spanning centuries, and taking place in remote, yet connected locales. This thesis provides an intellectual history of Ṣūfī print production of Islamicate mystical works in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries by examining three overlapping genres: poetry, Ṣūfī histories (hagiography), and litanies (aḥzāb). Texts such as the Dīwān of devotional poetry by Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1234), the litany of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258), Ḥizb al-baḥr, and Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt, a history of the Naqshbandiyya order by Fakhr …

What Effect Does The Inclusion Of The Provision Of A Referendum Have On The Likelihood Of A Lasting Peace After A Settlement In Conflicts Over Territory?, Mona Saad Alresais

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the field of conflict resolution is increasingly becoming influential due to the increase of conflicts that we are facing. While there are set standards of rules and procedures for dealing with conflicts that happen between states, this cannot be said when it comes to civil wars. What is sought when it comes to conflicts is either starting a peace process or restoring a failed one. What usually results from a peace process is a negotiated settlement that lays out several provisions to appease both sides to achieve a durable peace. Provisions in a peace agreement are a very important …

All The King’S Horses: Stable Administration In New Kingdom Egypt, Tessa Genevieve David Litecky

Theses and Dissertations

Horses were an important part of Egyptian society during the New Kingdom as tools of warfare, status symbols of the elite, and an emblem of the power of kingship. However, little is known about how these animals were trained and cared for, or who was working in horse stables and their roles. There are no texts or images that explicitly explain methods of horse management. Therefore, this topic has been generally overlooked in the literature. This thesis combines two threads of evidence to create a more complete picture of the organization, purpose, and function of horse stables and the treatment …

Beirut/The Other Side Of The City: The Impact Of Visual Texture Production Of The Lebanese Postmemory Generation, 1989 - Present, Mohamed Moustafa Gameel Ebada

Theses and Dissertations

In 1989, after the Ta'if agreement, the war in Lebanon started to fade, which ended years of one of the most destructive civil conflicts in the region with no decisive winner or loser. The year also marked the birth of a new Lebanese generation who did not experience the war in person. It is a generation of postmemory, a term Maria Hirsch coined to describe the reminisces of those who did not have a personal encounter with past traumatic events. However, it was not before February 2005, when Rafic Al-Hariri's violent assassination occurred, when the postmemory generation started to question …

The Basha's Tools? Imagining Alternative Justice Futures In Egypt, Farah Ghazal

Theses and Dissertations

The dominant approach to addressing violence against women in Egypt today is carceral, or relying on the punitive instruments of the state to achieve justice (most visibly represented by the prison and police). While carceral responses are perhaps unsurprisingly advocated by state feminism, they are also promoted by what would typically be described as anti-state actors. This paradoxical entanglement takes place during what I identify as the 'carceral moment', a period marked by the intensification of political and social repression and during which incarceration appears more readily available as a solution to remedy perceived problems of governance. I argue that, …

Claiming The Mad, Samar Nour

Theses and Dissertations

Mental asylums in Egypt during the colonial period.