Research Catalog

Title

Arab American aesthetics : literature, material culture, film and theatre / edited by Therí A. Pickens.

Publication

• Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge : Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Pickens, Therí A.

Description

xi, 118 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

Arab American Aesthetics enlists a wide range of voices to explore, if not tentatively define, what could constitute Arab American aesthetics in literature, material culture, film, and theatre. This book seeks to unsettle current conversations within Arab American Studies that neglect aesthetics as a set of choices and constraints. Rather than divorce aesthetics from politics, the book sutures the two more closely together by challenging the causal relationship so often attributed to them. The conversations include formal choices, but also extend to the broad idea of what makes a work distinctly Arab American. That is, what about its beauty, ugliness, sublimity, or humor is explicitly tied to it as part of a tradition of Arab American arts? The book opens up the ways that we discuss Arab American literary and fine arts, so that we understand how Arab American identity and experience begets Arab American artistic enterprise. Split into three sections, the first offers a set of theoretical propositions for understanding aesthetics that traverse Arab American cultural production. The second section focuses on material culture as a way to think through the creation of objects as an aesthetic enterprise. The final section looks at narratives in theatre and how the impact of such a medium has the potential to recreate in both senses of the word: play and invention. By shifting the conversation from identity politics to the relationship between politics and aesthetics, this book provides an important contribution to Arab American studies.

Series Statement

Routledge studies on Middle Eastern diasporas ; 1

Uniform Title

Routledge studies on Middle Eastern diasporas ; 1.

Subjects

• Sachkultur
• Arab Americans > Intellectual life
• United States
• Film
• Arab Americans > Ethnic identity
• American literature > Arab American authors > History and criticism
• Arab Americans > Social conditions
• Araber
• Literatur

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: what's (identity) politics got to do with it? / by Therí A. Pickens -- Part I. Literary aesthetics. 1. The poetics of torture in Philip Metres' Sand opera / by Carol N. Fadda ; 2. An aesthetics of haunting: negotiating borders and loss in Arab American poetry / by Sirene Harb ; 3. Unfixing the autobiographical subject: fragmentation as aesthetics and identity in Rabih Alameddine's I, the divine / by Leila Moayeri Pazargadi -- Part II. Material culture. Threading through the outerspace of diaspora: traditional Palestinian embroidery and Arab American aesthetics of challenge & belonging / by Rasha Abdulhadi ; 4. "Serving Arabness": imagery and imagination of Arab-themed restaurants / by Matthew Jaber Stiffler -- Part III. Film & theatre. 5. Beyond first responders: politics, racism, and the aesthetics of Arab American theatre / by Jamil Khoury ; 6. Acting Arab/Arab acting: reclaiming the Arab American identity through aesthetic choices / by Michael Malek Najjar.

Call Number

JFE 18-5965

ISBN

• 9781138099814
• 1138099813

LCCN

• 2017041971
• 99976210709

OCLC

1007497651

Title

Arab American aesthetics : literature, material culture, film and theatre / edited by Therí A. Pickens.

Publisher

Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge : Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Routledge studies on Middle Eastern diasporas ; 1

Routledge studies on Middle Eastern diasporas ; 1.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Pickens, Therí A., editor.

Other Standard Identifier

99976210709

Research Call Number

JFE 18-5965