Representation of Problems or Problematic Representation: Three Middle Eastern American Plays
Representation of Problems or Problematic Representation: Three Middle Eastern American Plays
Globally, several theatrical performances have staged the consequences of the ‘war on terror’ after 9/11. This paper provides insights into how Middle Eastern American dramatists and characters responded to the war and the post-9/11 era. It explores how Middle Easterners in an American context were stereotyped, transformed into problematic subjects, how they resisted backlashing policies, and were influenced by fallout effects of the event in the plays Browntown, Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, and Nine Parts of Desire by reading them through Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial concepts. This paper argues for the necessity of recognizing hyphenated people in the mainstream context and approaches the problem in terms of negotiation instead of the negation of hyphenated identities to avoid potential identity problems which may lead to social problems. It calls for dramatists of artistic productions to claim recognition of their identity and correct the distorted images to prevent their transformation into problematic realms.
___
- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983.
- Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
- Ashcroft Bill, Griffiths Gareth, Tiffin Helen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 2002.
- Ashcroft Bill, Griffiths Gareth, Tiffin Helen. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 2006.
- Ashcroft Bill, Griffiths Gareth, Tiffin Helen. Post-Colonialism: The Key Concepts (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 2007.
- Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
- Bilici, Mucahit. Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 2012.
- Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
- Cornell, Vincent. J.. Voices of Islam: Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science (Vol. 4). London: Praeger Publishers, 2007.
- El Guindi, Youssef. Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.asjournal. org/52-2008/the-theatre-of-yussef-el-guindi/
- Eng, David. L. and Kazanjian, David. Loss: The Politics of Mourning. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
- Esposito, John. L.. The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks (R. Philcox, Trans.). New York: Grove Press Inc., 2008.
- Hafez, Sherine. An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion and Secularism in Women’s Islamic Movements. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
- Hill, Holly and Amin, Dina. Salaam. Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern-American Drama (1st ed.). New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2009.
- Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Malak, Amin. Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.
- McCann, Carole Ruth and Kim, Seung-Kyung. Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives. London: Routledge, 2013.
- Parry, Nigel. The Perfect Antidote to the War on Terror. (2006). Retrieved from http://electronicintifada.net/ content/perfect-antidote-war-terror/5856
- Raffo, Heather. Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 2006.
- Wu, Jean Yuwen Shen and Chen, Thomas. Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader.
- New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,
- ISSN: 1303-8605
- Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
- Başlangıç: 2002
- Yayıncı: İstanbul Üniversitesi