CAST 261 - Contemporary Arab American Literature

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
Joe Kadi in his introduction to the seminal collection, Food for Our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists (1994), refers to the Arab community’s “invisibility” (xix) as “the most invisible of the invisibles” (xix). In the Post 9/11 Era this distinction is no longer as apt as it was in the mid-nineties, but indeed the stigma of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists and fundamentalists has created an entirely new kind of (in)visibility/hyper-visibility. Much of the visibility that surrounds Arabs in the popular imagination today continues to be shaped by racism, bigotry, misinformation, and propaganda. Arab American writers challenge this kind of mindless mainstream demonization and Hollywood vilification by evoking complex, personal, communal, national, cultural, historical, political and religious realities that manifest themselves at home and elsewhere. Contemporary Arab American Literature studies Arab American literature from 1990 to the present. Students examine novels, short ﬁction, memoirs, film, comics, plays, and poetry in an effort to understand the major concerns of contemporary Arab American artists, scholars, and activists. In addition to a discussion of formal literary concerns, this course is animated by how writers interrogate questions of race, class, gender, sexuality, politics, religion, and history.
This course is appropriate for new students.