Fedwa Malti-Douglas

Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing

Woman's Body, Woman's Word

Roger Allen

Studies in the Arabic Literary Tradition

Critical Pilgrimages

In Medicines of the Soul, the autobiographical writings of three leading women in today's Islamic revival movement reveal dramatic stories of religious transformation. As interpreted by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, the autobiographies provide a powerful, groundbreaking portrayal of gender, religion, and discourses of the body in Arabo-Islamic culture. At the center of each story is a lively female Islamic spirituality that questions secular hierarchies while reaffirming patriarchal ones.

Female Bodies and Sacred Geographies in a Transnational Islam

Medicines of the Soul

Hisland takes place in a fictional universe--the Islands of Ac-Ac, whose pride and joy is the educational institution of Ac-Ac U. Into this traditionally male world fall the narrator and her feline companion. Their attempted integration into this dystopian world leads the reader on a self-conscious and role-questioning journey.

Adventures in Ac-Ac-ademe

Hisland

An entertainingly satirical vision of today's academy, in which a woman academic lands, with her cat, in a university, largely populated by males.

Geneviève Fourcade

An Introduction and Guide to the Onomasticum [i.e., Onomasticon] Arabicum

The Treatment by Computer of Medieval Arabic Biographical Data

Allen Douglas

The discipline of Middle Eastern studies in the West has often been resistant to incorporating new theoretical and conceptual paradigms. Arab Comic Strips provides at least one indicator that this trend has begun to change. The study reflects the influence of both political economy and post-modernism. The former's influence can be seen in the authors' focus on mass culture and "history from below," while the latter's manifests itself in the authors' use of semiotics and their eschewal of any linear model of social change or totalizing discourse. The strengths of Arab Comic Strips lie in its comprehensive treatment of the genre it scrutinizes. The authors present extensively detailed studies of comic strips that range from Iraq and the Gulf to North Africa and France. Further, the strips they select cover a wide thematic and ideological terrain. Pan-Arabist, Islamist, hybrid Western-Arab, and radical leftist strips all receive in-depth analysis. Through this analysis, the reader gains great insight into political and cultural debates specific to particular regions of the Arab world. The juxtaposition of strips representing different thematic, ideological, and geographical perspectives constitutes comparative analysis at its best. -- From http://www.jstor.org (Dec. 4, 2013).

Politics of an Emerging Mass Culture

Arab Comic Strips

The three-volume life-story of the Egyptian intellectual Tahah Husayn (1889-1973) is a landmark in modern autobiography, in Arabic letters, and in the literature of blindness. This justly celebrated text, however, has never been subjected to the sustained literary analysis here presented by Fedwa Malti-Douglas. Born into a modest family and blinded in childhood, Husayn nevertheless conquered first his own and then a European educational system to become one of his country's leading modernizers. Professor Malti-Douglas shows that the personal, social, and literary reality of the hero's blindness gives the autobiography its unity and force. Blindness and Autobiography is not only a rich explication of al-Ayyam but a pioneering study of the interaction between a severe physical handicap and the autobiographical process. It adds a new perspective to the contemporary discussion of the cultural uses of the body. The first part of the book explores blindness and society, from the evolving conflict between personal and social conceptions of the handicap to the way blindness redefines the more familiar issues of traditional versus modern, East versus West. The second section examines the relationship of blindness to the autobiography's ecriture, rhetoric, and narration. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn

Blindness and Autobiography

"An impressive and erudite book that offers significant interpretations of the work of one of the most important writers of the international community."--Susan Jeffords, University of Washington "An impressive and erudite book that offers significant interpretations of the work of one of the most important writers of the international community."--Susan Jeffords, University of Washington

Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics

Men, Women, and God(s)

Men, Women, and God(s) is a pioneering study of the Arab world's leading feminist and most controversial woman writer, Nawal El Saadawi. Author of plays, memoirs, and such novels as Woman at Point Zero and The Innocence of the Devil, El Saadawi has become well known in the West as well as in the Arab community for her unforgettable female heroes and explosive narratives, which boldly address sexual violence, female circumcision, theology, and other politically charged themes. Her outspoken feminism and critique of patriarchy have also earned her the wrath of repressive forces in the Middle East. Imprisoned in her native Egypt under Sadat, El Saadawi is now among those on the death lists of Islamic religious conservatives. In Men, Women, and God(s) Fedwa Malti-Douglas makes the work of this important but little-understood writer truly accessible. Contending that El Saadawi's texts cannot be read in isolation from their Islamic and Arabic heritage, Malti-Douglas draws upon a deep knowledge of classical and modern Arabic textual traditions—and on extensive conversations with Nawal El Saadawi—to place the writer within her cultural and historical context. With this impassioned and radical exegesis of El Saadawi's prolific output, Malti-Douglas has written a crucial study of one of the most controversial and influential writers of our time. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.

Men, Women, and Gods

Sex, politics, and the law characterized the Clinton era, which began with the emergence of Bill Clinton as a presidential candidate with a train of sex scandals and ended with the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Monica Lewinsky affair was the climax of the phenomenon, and the resulting scandal had far-reaching effects. Politics became the language and the means for battles over sex. Sex and politics became metaphors for each other as American society struggled to come to terms with its sexual and political anxieties. Partisan Sex: Bodies, Politics, and the Law in the Clinton Era explores the high-cultural anxieties of the left and the masculinity hang-ups of the right, the exploitation of romance imagery and hot sauce bottles, the obsessions with Hillary Clinton's breakfasts, and the rise of a society of voyeurs. -- Amazon.com.

Bodies, Politics, and the Law in the Clinton Era

Partisan Sex

Tzvetan Todorov

Wayne State University Press

Muhsin Mahdi

Michael Cooperson

Muhsin Jassim Ali

Heinz Grotzfeld

Nabia Abbott

Gustave E. von Grunebaum

Solomon D. Goitein

Peter Heath

Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh

Andras Hamori

Peter D. Molan

An authoritative guide to research inspired by the Arabian Nights, containing sixteen influential essays.

The Arabian Nights Reader

Woman's voice and body are closely entwined in the Arabo-Islamic tradition, argues Fedwa Malti-Douglas in this pioneering book. Spanning the ninth through twentieth centuries and covering a wide range of texts—from courtly anectdote to mystical and philosophical treatises, from works of geography to autobiography—this study reveals how woman's access to literary speech has remained mediated through her body. Malti-Douglas first analyzes classical texts (both well-known works like The Thousand and One Nights and others still ignored in the West) in which the female voice, often associated with wit or trickery of a sexual nature, is subordinated to the male scriptor. Showing how early Arabo-Islamic discourse continues to influence contemporary Arabic writing, she maintains that today feminist writers of novels, short stories, and autobiography must work through this tradition, even if they subvert or reject it in the end. Whereas woman in the classical period speaks through the body, woman in the modern period often turns corporeality into a literary weapon to achieve power over discourse. Fedwa Malti-Douglas is Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, Austin. Her books include Structures of Avarice: The Bukhala' in Medieval Arabic Literature (Leiden) and Blindness and Autobiography: Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn (Princeton). Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Fedwa Malti-Douglas

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