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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

The Romani People In The European Cultural Imagination: Alexander Pushkin, Prosper Mérimée And Virginia Woolf, Nadya Siyam Feb 2024

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, …


Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory, Rebekah Izard May 2023

Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory, Rebekah Izard

English (MA) Theses

Fantastical narratives such as fairy tales and magical realist literature utilizes fantastic and intangible spaces to unpack that which is often beyond the limitations imposed on our understanding by reality: the stunting experience of individual and generational traumas. This study aims to contribute to the current literary discourse’s understandings of fantastic literature and its subgenres as a tool for healing from trauma through the application of ontological notions of Selfhood and Otherness supplied by 20th century philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, and the notion of Orientalism by postcolonial scholar, Edward Said. The dialogue generated by these schools of thought provide a space …


Engl 157: Great Works Of Global Literature, Scott R. Kapuscinski Jan 2023

Engl 157: Great Works Of Global Literature, Scott R. Kapuscinski

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for a general education course bringing together celebrated texts by Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, and Marjane Satrapi. Survey of perspectives beginning during the "scramble for Africa" via Conrad, through postcolonial writers Achebe and Head, and finally making a connection via dehumanization to Orientalism and undoing monocultural presumptions in the near East through Satrapi's Persepolis.


Orientalism Restated In The Era Of Covid-19, Joey Kim Mar 2022

Orientalism Restated In The Era Of Covid-19, Joey Kim

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay bridges a gap between an analysis of anti-Asian targeting and an analysis of Orientalism. Because histories of Orientalism and anti-Asian targeting pre-date the current moment, I demonstrate the centrality of Orientalism to the evolution of xenophobic language and sentiment in U.S.-foreign historical relations. I recount instances of anti-Asian, xenophobic, and “Yellow-Peril” rhetoric in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, I examine the racialization of COVID-19 as a trope of orientalism. This racialization, I argue, places the Asian-presenting body in a state of heightened visibility, precarity, and susceptibility to plunder. The newfound precarity of the …


Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison May 2021

Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper looks at a series of modern Asian American pieces of media in order to analyze how women and LGBT+ depict and create their community, especially in relation to another marginalized ethnic group. By examining the relationship between these groups within popular media, we can uncover how Asian Americans choose to represent themselves and gain a deeper understanding on how marginalized groups choose to portray themselves.


From The Beqaa Valley To Deep Valley: Arab American Childhood & Us Orientalism In Children's Literature, Danielle Haque Apr 2021

From The Beqaa Valley To Deep Valley: Arab American Childhood & Us Orientalism In Children's Literature, Danielle Haque

Research on Diversity in Youth Literature

No abstract provided.


Re-Orientalisation And The Pursuit Of Ecstasy: Remembering Homeland In Prisoner Of Tehran, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2012

Re-Orientalisation And The Pursuit Of Ecstasy: Remembering Homeland In Prisoner Of Tehran, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

The Western literary market is saturated with the Middle Eastern women memoirs since 9/11. What caused this saturation lies in the curiosity of the West to know about the Middle Easterners after 9/11 and the following President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech addressed to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, followed by launching his ‘war on terror’ project. This was the time when an influx of memoirs by and about Iranian women has emerged. This paper examines Marina Nemat’s memories of her birthland in her memoir, Prisoner of Tehran. Utilizing Dabashi’s concept of ‘native informer’, Bhabha’s concept of ‘stereotypical representation’ and …


Critical Pedagogy Of A Post-9/11 Muslim Memoir, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2012

Critical Pedagogy Of A Post-9/11 Muslim Memoir, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

Traditional education of literature would do injustice to both students and the discipline in this age of globalization. This is the era when teachers should use critical pedagogy to teach any genre of literature. Nowadays, a great number of memoirs form the Middle East perpetuate Islamophobia; yet some of them are taught at schools in the West. Perpetrating and perpetuating Islamophobia, as a trait of globalization, can be seen in some Iranian diasporic writings as well. This paper examines Persepolis: The story of a childhood, a diasporic Iranian memoir that is included in the educational curriculum of some Western schools. …


Orientalism And Three British Dames: De-Essentialization Of The Other In The Work Of Gertrude Bell, Freya Stark, And E.S. Drower, Lynn Sawyer Apr 2012

Orientalism And Three British Dames: De-Essentialization Of The Other In The Work Of Gertrude Bell, Freya Stark, And E.S. Drower, Lynn Sawyer

Masters Theses

Although postcolonial criticism has run its course for thirty years, a fresh look at Edward Said's Orientalism offers insight into how Orientalism functions in the writings of three British dames. Gertrude Bell in The Desert and the Sown, Freya Stark in The Southern Gates of Arabia, and E.S. Drower in The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, however, challenge Said's theory. Their writing raises questions about how gender alters the discourse about the Other, and whether Said essentializes the Occident. Bell, Stark, and Drower serve as case studies in which to analyze the politically and rhetorically complex interactions between the West …


The Construction Of Self And The Rejection Of The Natives As The Inferior Other: Sadegh Hedayat’S Blind Owl, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2010

The Construction Of Self And The Rejection Of The Natives As The Inferior Other: Sadegh Hedayat’S Blind Owl, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

Iranian intellectuals including Iranian modern literary writers who were supposed to act as the consciousness and voice of their people fall prey to the imported Western modernity. The influence of these western education and culture rendered them so alienated that pushed them to build a big rift between themselves and the rest of the society. This causes these writers to create an image of the natives that comes to the fore as the most macabre and stereotypical representation of the indigenous people. Although many different studies have been carried out on the Blind Owl, it seems that little focus has …


The Resonance Of Postcolonialism In Hedayat’S Stray Dog, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2010

The Resonance Of Postcolonialism In Hedayat’S Stray Dog, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

Sadegh Hedayat‘s The Stray Dog oscillates between two geographical locales, native homeland and the land of his master where he spent a part of his life there, Europe. This story can be read as the manifestation of the Iranian identity dilemma which is defined as a confused situation in which a sense of ―sardargomi va sargashtegi” ―confusion and wandering‖ began to materialize in the main character.This article, through analyzing the story as an allegorical story, will seek to explain the distinctive problem and condition of displacement encountered by an Iranian writer which arise feelings of isolation, estrangement, internal and external …


A Brown Skin Writer As An Imperialistic Native Informer: Remembering The Homeland In Reading Lolita In Tehran, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2010

A Brown Skin Writer As An Imperialistic Native Informer: Remembering The Homeland In Reading Lolita In Tehran, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

Largely neglected throughout the 1980s and 1990s, in the post-revolution period, Iranian immigrant women writers have become important to a growing Western readership. One of the most striking features of this emerging literature is its obsession with the personal and collective past, which has translated into the dominance of the memoir as a genre. For the last few decades, these women in exile have been creating a literature engaged with what have become the most suitable topics of the day: immigration, exile, religious fundamentalism and women‟s right (Darznik, 2008). Through memoirs, they were able to voice their political and ideological …


Orientalized From Within: Modernity And Modern Anti-Imperial Iranian Intellectual Gharbzadegi And The Roots Of Mental Wretchedness, Esmaeil Zeiny Dec 2010

Orientalized From Within: Modernity And Modern Anti-Imperial Iranian Intellectual Gharbzadegi And The Roots Of Mental Wretchedness, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

In the conditions in which dominant global powers is still trying to expand their cultural hegemony, neo-colonialism, over the countries which are trying to hold their independence, through the creation of native intellectuals who are mentally Gharbzadeh, Westoxificated. This study finds it crucial to take the issue a step further ahead to discuss how the ideas of Ale-e Ahamad’s famous theory of Gharbzadegi is still applicable in our time and reveals its representations in Said’s well-known concept of Orientalism. These imperial powers through the controlling of the world’s educational system and thoughts and ultimately the mindsets of the native intellectuals …