American arabesque : Arabs, Islam, and the 19th-century imaginary / Jacob Rama Berman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berman, Jacob Rama.

Series:

America and the long 19th century.

America and the long 19th century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

National characteristics, American, in literature.

Islam in literature.

Arabs--Race identity.

Arabs.

National characteristics, American--History--19th century.

National characteristics, American.

Arabs in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (287 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, c2012.

New York, NY : New York University Press, [2012]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Introduction: Guest Figures

The Barbarous Voice of Democracy

Pentimento Geographies

Poe's Arabesque

American Moors and the Barbaresque

Arab Masquerade : Mahjar Identity Politics and Trans-nationalism

Afterword: Haunted Houses.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Mrz 2024)

ISBN:

9780814723210

0814723217

9780814789513

081478951X

OCLC:

794663357