A Language of One's Own : Literary Arabic, the Palestinians and Israel

Nashef, Ismail

Edinburgh University Press（2023/07発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 256 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781399512015
• DDC分類 306.44095694

Full Description

Demystifies the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement since 1948

Offers a fresh case study of literary colonial contexts, in which language, literature, and socio-political regime are re-examined based on new data
Opens a new tradition of addressing literary criticism as part of the Palestinian literary field by incorporating economic, social, and institutional factors in the analyses of literary Arabic
Provides new and genuine insights regarding the literary settler colonial context in Palestine, and demystifies many of the accepted notions regarding the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement.
Unlocks the umbilical relation between the language and the nation in the Palestinian and Israeli contexts, and it frees literature and literary practices from the preordained roles derivative from the national ideologies of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Argues that reading and writing practices are a form of social and political agency in themselves
Demystifies many of the accepted notions regarding the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement

Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, literary Arabic became one of the main representative of Palestinian national identity within Israel, and therefore a contested public site. Various state agencies and Palestinian groups were active in this public site, calling for certain ways of reading and writing in Arabic. These ways influenced the processes of reshaping the Palestinian national identity that were ignited by the war of 1948. Addressing the Palestinian reading public in Israel, both state agencies and Palestinian groups used literary criticism, as well as other genres, to promote and inculcate their preferred ways of reading and writing.

Ismail Nashef argues that since 1948 there have been three distinct modes for addressing the Palestinian reading public through literary Arabic: the public intellectual mode, the academic mode and the professional expert mode. Based on rich literary, historical and legal data, the book offers a fresh case study of literary settler colonial contexts, in which language, literature and socio-political regime are re-examined based on new data. It demonstrates the impossibility of rebuilding Palestinian national identities within the Zionist regime, highlighting the literary embodiment of the ongoing settler colonial condition of Palestinians in Israel

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: On Compulsiveness and Excessiveness: 'Arabic'
Chapter Two: The Constitution of 'Arabic': Structural Beginnings and a Chain of Literary Events
Chapter Three: The Mediation Position in 'Arabic': The Colonial Mimetic Mask
Chapter Four: The Procedure Liberated: 'Arabic' in the Hands of Palestinian Experts
The Conclusion: The Narrative of the History of the Non-Historical
References