American Arabesque : Arabs and Islam in the Nineteenth Century Imaginary

• Tác giả: Jacob Rama Berman
• ISBN-13: 978-0814789513
• Thông tin xuất bản: New York : New York University Press, 2012.
• Mô tả vật lý: 1 online resource : , illustrations
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 462060
• Chủ đề: 1. American literature--History and criticism--19th century; 2. Arabs--Race identity; 3. Arabs in literature; 4. Islam in literature; 5. National characteristics, American--History--19th century; 6. National characteristics, American, in literature; 7. Arabes--Identite ethnique; 8. Arabes dans la litterature; 9. Islam dans la litterature; 10. Litterature americaine--Histoire et critique--19e siecle; 11. American literature; 12. Araber; 14. Arabs in literature; 15. Islam; 16. Islam in literature; 17. LITERARY CRITICISM--American; 18. Literatur; 19. National characteristics, American; 20. National characteristics, American, in literature; 21. Nationalcharakter; 22. SOCIAL SCIENCE--Anthropology

Tóm tắt

American Arabesque examines representations of Arabs, Islam and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them today. Moving from the period of America's engagement in the Barbary Wars through the Holy Land travel mania in the years of Jacksonian expansion and into the writings of romantics such as Edgar Allan Poe, the book argues that not only were Arabs and Muslims prominently featured in nineteenth-century literature, but that the differences writers established between figures such as Moors, Bedouins, Turks and Orientals provide proof of the transnational scope of domestic racial politics. Drawing on both English and Arabic language sources, Berman contends that the fluidity and instability of the term Arab as it appears in captivity narratives, travel narratives, imaginative literature, and ethnic literature simultaneously instantiate and undermine definitions of the American nation and American citizenship.