1. The Politics of Reading: CCAS's Qatar Postdoctoral Fellow reflects on the uses of literature as a tool for cultural understanding
- Author:
- Elizabeth Kelley
- Publication Date:
- 04-2016
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Oh, I just loved The Kite Runner,” people in North America sometimes tell me when I explain what my research is about: the translation and circulation of Arabic novels in English. In these cases, the individuals, who are not usually scholars or students of Arabic or the Arab world, go on to explain how much they enjoyed Khaled Hosseini’s novel, how they felt it helped them to learn about life in Afghanistan and what it was like to grow up there. In some ways, The Kite Runner is quite far from my research topic, given that the novel was written in English, was not translated from any language, and that the author had been living in the United States for decades prior to writing it. Not to mention that Arabic is not the language of Afghanistan, and although it is part of the Muslim world, Afghanistan is not generally considered part of the Arab world. Thus, linking Afghani literature with literature of the Arab world may rely on collapsing regional, linguistic, and cultural differences under the undifferentiated sign of Islam.
- Topic:
- Research, Literature, Higher Education, and Translation
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Middle East, and Arab Countries