CFP: Arabic Literature Now: between Area Studies and the New Comparatism
(re-posted from the Adabiyat list)
From: <whassan@uiuc.edu>
To: adabiyat@listhost.uchicago.edu
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:12:47 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [Adabiyat] CFP: Arabic Literature Now
Arabic Literature Now: Between Area Studies and the New Comparatism
A Special issue of Comparative Literature Studies
Edited by Amal Amireh and Waïl S. Hassan
Interest in Arabic literature in the United States has been sparked by Naguib Mahfouz’s winning of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988, by multiculturalism, and by postcolonial studies, particularly Edward Said’s critical legacy. But in recent years, this interest has intensified because of the two Gulf wars, 9/11, and the on-going “War on terror.” Studying Arabic literature in the American academy and beyond cannot be abstracted from a context of Middle East politics and is taking place in the shadow of a “clash of civilization” ideology that posits the Arab and Muslim worlds as the dangerous other of western civilization.
As editors of a special issue of Comparative Literature Studies devoted to Arabic literature, we are seeking papers that take into account the complex contexts in which Arabic literature is being studied outside the Arab world at this historical juncture. Among the questions we are interested in are the following: What is the status of Arabic literary studies today? Has Arabic studies freed itself from the legacy of Orientalism? What is the impact of postcolonial theory on Arabic literary studies? What is the place of Arabic literature in the new articulations of comparative literature (from Gayatri Spivak’s Death of a Discipline to Haun Saussy’s Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization) and world literature (e.g. Franco Moretti, David Damrosch, Pascale Casanova)? What roles have postcolonial theory, feminist theory, translation theory, and reception theory played, or can play, in such articulations? What are the points of contact between Arabic literature and those of Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Australia? How do issues of gender, sexuality, war, nationalism, globalization, and human rights figure in Arabic literature today? What are the pedagogical implications and challenges of the current interest in Arabic literature and culture?
We invite articles that reflect on these and related questions in connection with Arabic-language texts written in the Arab world and elsewhere as well as texts by Arab writers of Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish expression.
The issue is scheduled to appear in late 2010. Completed papers will need to be submitted no later than 30 January 2009. 500-word proposals and brief CV are due by 30 September 2008 to Amal Amireh aamireh@gmu.edu and Waïl S. Hassan whassan@uiuc.edu. Contributions should conform to CLS style, and be between 6000 and 10,000 words. See the CLS style guide at http://cl-studies.psu.edu/submissions.shtml for further information.
Waïl S. Hassan
Associate Professor
Program in Comparative and World Literature
Center for African Studies
Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mailing address:
Program in Comparative and World Literature
3080 Foreign Languages Building
707 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
