Papers by Mahmoud Al-Shetawi
دراسات - العلوم الإنسانية والاجتماعية, 2019
This study aims at identifying the nature of father-son estrangement in nineteenth-century Britis... more This study aims at identifying the nature of father-son estrangement in nineteenth-century British family exemplified in Edmund Gosse's Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. This study departs from the psychoanalytical perspective and examines father-son estrangement in the light of the concept of patriarchal authority and its socio-cultural implications in the nineteenth-century British society. It also focuses on the impact of evolutionary theories on the Victorian society, in the sense that with the emergence of evolutionary theories all taken-for-granted ideas, authorities such as paternal authority, and institutions are put into question. The findings show that in Gosse's novel, the father and the son embody two separate islands; each one adheres to contradictory interests, conflicting principles, and life-choices. While the father tries to refashion his son's life according to the principles of self-denial, repression, and imposition of a religious vocation, the son is imaginative and skeptical; he pushes against his father's system of upbringing and adheres to instincts, imagination, and love of literature. The study also finds out that a life based wholly on self-restraint and lifedenying religion is not balanced, because one's desires, instincts, and individual life-choices cannot be eliminated totally.
This paper argues that the African tradition of oral storytelling is an act of resistance conferr... more This paper argues that the African tradition of oral storytelling is an act of resistance conferring agency to oppressed African-Americans and countering existing Eurocentric discourses. Specifically, the paper relates storytelling, a process of telling local and personal narratives from an African vantage point, to the theoretical underpinnings of Afrocentricity expostulated by African-American theorist, Molefe Kete Asante. Storytelling serves the aims of Afrocentricity as they both work towards endowing the African subject with agency to free voices from the margin so as to subvert white supremacists’ discourse. The study brings into focus how the storytelling experience proceeds towards the liberation and tranz0sformation of the storyteller and the listener in Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby (1981). It additionally exhibits how agency is born during this process enabling the disempowered subjects to become speaking powers in recounting their stories and in deciding their own fate in a d...
Diasporic Arab writers substantially differ in how they represent aspects of contemporary Arabic ... more Diasporic Arab writers substantially differ in how they represent aspects of contemporary Arabic culture(s) in their literary works and diasporic Arab women writers have represented Islam even more differently in their works. The study investigates how Islam is portrayed in the fiction of two diasporic Arab women writers, Leila Aboulela (b. 1964) and Mohja Kahf. (1967). General literary research has been conducted on these two writers and how they represent Islam in their writing; however, firstly, most of the conducted literature is about the veil and what it adds to Muslim women living in the West. Secondly, most of the previous research tackles each writer alone. Nevertheless, the current study is predominantly different as it shows how Islam is represented in both Aboulela’s Minaret (2004) and Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006) as a religion that provides an ethical pathway and empowers its adherents socially, politically and psychologically, thus lending purpose to o...
Critical Survey, 2020
This article attempts to document and examine the corpus of Arabic and Islamic allusions and refe... more This article attempts to document and examine the corpus of Arabic and Islamic allusions and references in Shakespeare’s drama and poetry in line with postcolonial discourse and theory. The works of Shakespeare incorporate a large body of Arabic/Islamic matters, which the Bard has gleaned from different sources, such as travel literature, narratives of pilgrims, history annals and common tales of the Crusaders. However, these matters are sporadic in Shakespeare’s works, woven into the fabric of various plays and poems. For example, Shakespeare has thematically used a set of allusions and references to the Arab world such as Arabian trees, the Prophet Mohammed, the Turk, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and many others. Shakespeare has also presented three Oriental characters in his plays: the Prince of Morocco, Shylock and Othello, each with distinctive ethnic and personal traits. A scrutiny of Arabic and Islamic matters in the works of Shakespeare from postcolonial critical perspectives reveals ...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018
This paper aims to discuss representations of family relationships and generational conflicts in ... more This paper aims to discuss representations of family relationships and generational conflicts in the works of British writers in diaspora in the context of British multiculturalism. This study argues that in the context of multiculturalism, generational conflicts ensue between first-generation immigrants and their British-born children for various reasons. While the parents attempt to retain their roots and to belong to their homelands, second-generation children struggle to maintain a balance between submergence into mainstream culture and negotiating flexible identities. The paper also points out that paternal conflicts are the result of the clash of ideologies, emotional alienation, and lack of communication. These concerns will be examined in Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000).
Critical Survey, 2013
ABSTRACT Building on what has already been documented in related scholarship concerning this topi... more ABSTRACT Building on what has already been documented in related scholarship concerning this topic, this article will look into facets of postcolonial theory vis-à-vis appropriations and adaptations of the plays of Shakespeare in Arabic. In doing so, the article will compare known postcolonial 'Shakespeares', and Arabic appropriations of his plays. It will comment on the postcolonial aspects of these plays and show whether Arab dramatists have been 'writing back', so to speak, in response to the colonial experience. The article addresses the following questions: first, do Arab playwrights deal with postcolonial issues in their appropriations of Shakespeare? Second, to what extent have Arab playwrights used Shakespeare to 'strike' at colonialism? Third, are Arab playwrights aware of postcolonial theory and discourse? And fourth, what is the nature of the Arabic contribution to postcolonial discourse? Although the treatment of Shakespeare in Arabic literature, especially drama and poetry, has been considered elsewhere, this particular approach to the Bard is relatively new. The article contends that there are postcolonial appropriations of Shakespeare in Arabic, which need to be properly investigated and commented upon with reference to postcolonial literary theory.
World Literature Today, 1987
... 11 Muhammad Abdel-Rahman Husein says that one can see the skull of Solayman al-Halabi display... more ... 11 Muhammad Abdel-Rahman Husein says that one can see the skull of Solayman al-Halabi displayed in a criminal museum in Paris with the inscription "Head of a Murderer." See Nidal Sha'b Misr: 1798-1956, Alexandria, Mansha'at al-Ma'arif, nd, pp. 9-20. ...
World Literature Today, 1989
... ala l-riwayah al-'Arabiyyah, Beirut, Al-... more ... ala l-riwayah al-'Arabiyyah, Beirut, Al-Muassassah al-'Arabiyyah li-'l-Dirasat wa-'l-Nashr, 1978; 'Isam Mahfuz, Al-Riwayah al ... li-'l-Kitab, 1983; Jurj Salim, Al-Mughamara al-riwa'iyya, Damascus, Manshurat Ittihad al-Kuttab al-'Arab, 1973; Muhammad Siddiq, "The Contemporary ...
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 1994
Shakespeare's comedies are generally less well received in the Arab world than his tragedies, for... more Shakespeare's comedies are generally less well received in the Arab world than his tragedies, for reasons which space does not allow us to consider here. However, The Merchant of Venice is an exception; the play has been translated, staged and reviewed considerably. In my study, "Shakespeare in Arabic: A Bibliographical Essay", I have listed a dozen different translations of the play and cited numerous articles, critical reviews and commentaries on it. The play has also been performed, though intermittently, in some Arab countries, especially in Egypt, and there is a significant corpus of criticism dealing with it(IJ. Several reasons are proposed for the popularity of this particular comedy in Arabic. First,• it has always been viewed in relation with the Arab-Jewish conflict. Arab writers, as will be explained later in the study, have appreciated the way shakespeare delineates the Jews because they see Shylock as an incarnation of Zionism< 2 l. Second, in dealing with usury the play highlights Shylock's inhumanity in leanding money with "usance", a
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 1999
... Mohammed Subhi, who is known for his comic roles in TV comedies and drama, presented a ... Ha... more ... Mohammed Subhi, who is known for his comic roles in TV comedies and drama, presented a ... Hamlet's disgust at the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle shortly after the burial of his ... Aleppo, Syria, who was at the time pursuing his theological studies at al-Azhar, the famous ...
International Journal of Arabic-English Studies, 2019
The study sheds light on the folkloric tradition of oral storytelling which has been used as an a... more The study sheds light on the folkloric tradition of oral storytelling which has been used as an act of resistance in Ernest Gaines’s A Gathering of Old Men (1983). The marginalized black characters decide to voice their tragedies so as to empower each other to counter the discourse of White supremacy. This tradition becomes a measure of reaching sustainable socio-cultural transformation in the black community. More specifically, the paper relates storytelling, a process of telling personal narratives from an African vantage point, to the theory of Afrocentricity put forward by African-American theorist, Molefe Kete Asante. Steeped in African orature, storytelling leads to Afrocentricity as it endows the African subject with agency to move from the margin to the center. The paper considers how this agency is created throughout this process enabling the disempowered subjects to become speaking powers in recounting their stories and in deciding their own fate in a racist society. Also,...
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2017
This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakesp... more This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakespeare’s Othello. Specifically, this paper argues that Mahjoub’s historical novel The Carrier (1998) re-writes Shakespeare’s Othello in a way that enables the novelist to comment on some of the themes that remain unexplored in Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Mahjoub appropriates tropes, motifs and episodes from Shakespeare’s play which include places like Cyprus and Aleppo, Othello’s identity, abusive/foul language, animalistic imagery, and motifs like the eye, sorcery/witchcraft, the storm and adventurous travels. Unlike Othello’s fabled and mythical travels and adventures, Mahjoub renders Rashid al-Kenzy’s as realistic and true to life in a way that highlights his vulnerability. In addition, the ill-fated marriage between Othello and Desdemona is adapted in Mahjoub’s novel in the form of a Platonic love that is founded on a scientific dialogue between Rashid al-Kenzy and Sigrid Heinesen, a po...
This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakesp... more This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakespeare's Othello. Specifically, this paper argues that Mahjoub's historical novel The Carrier (1998) rewrites Shakespeare's Othello in a way that enables the novelist to comment on some of the themes that remain unexplored in Shakespeare's masterpiece. Mahjoub appropriates tropes, motifs and episodes from Shakespeare's play which include places like Cyprus and Aleppo, Othello's identity, abusive/foul language, animalistic imagery, and motifs like the eye, sorcery/witchcraft, the storm and adventurous travels. Unlike Othello's fabled and mythical travels and adventures, Mahjoub renders Rashid al-Kenzy's as realistic and true to life in a way that highlights his vulnerability. In addition, the ill-fated marriage between Othello and Desdemona is adapted in Mahjoub's novel in the form of a Platonic love that is founded on a scientific dialogue between Rashid al-Kenzy and Sigrid Heinesen, a poet and philosopher woman from Jutland. In this way, Desdemona's claim that she sees Othello's visage in his mind, a claim that is strongly undermined by Othello's irrationality, jealousy and belief in superstitions during the course of the play, is emphasized and foregrounded in Mahjoub's novel.
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Papers by Mahmoud Al-Shetawi