Written Homework #8 (due 11/4)

Written Homework Assignment #8: Arab Women and the Novel

 

  • As you read the three readings for Wednesday’s class, please consider the questions below and write a 1-page response (Times 12, one inch margins) to the question assigned to you. Be prepared to share your response in class and to discuss the questions not assigned to you as well.
  • Questions:
  1. How do miriam cooke’s and Joseph Zeidan’s analysis of the evolving depiction of the female character match your own encounter with female characters in the novels that we’ve read? (Kizzy, Mayed)
  2. How might you reinterpret – or rather, come to understand the significance of – Leila Abouzeid’s Year of the Elephant in light of miriam cooke’s historical analysis of female characters in the Arabic novel? (Lorenzo, Rubi)
  3. Speaking about “themes of oppression in some women’s work, [female literary critic Fatma Moussa Mahmoud] goes so far as to say that: ‘Unfortunately the involvement of the writers often disqualifies the work as creative art’” (cooke, 1988, 80). What do you make of Mahmoud’s critique of women’s writing? Does this match or diverge from your sense of the “quality” of committed/engaged literature? How does this fit with the reception, role, and significance of literary commitment in the modern Arabic novel? (Toni, Jordan)
  1. What does Joseph Zeidan have to say about the linguistic, structural, and narrative innovations that women writers have brought to the modern Arabic novel? Do you perceive these innovations as having universal echoes across all women’s writing? Do they correspond with your own instincts about women as novelists and authors? (Nataliah, Alex)
  2. How does Distant View of a Minaret respond to the deficiencies in the representation of women as described by cooke and Zeidan? How does the protagonist of Distant View of a Minaret represent a type of female protagonist not previously encountered in the novels we’ve read? (Oakley, Becca)
  1. To what degree do you find a kinship (or lack thereof) between the protagonist of Distant View of a Minaret and Zahra in Year of the Elephant? If they do share a representational kinship, do you believe that the gender of the author is the determining factor? (Kathleen, Clair)