Linked Data Explorerhttp://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/686130102
Servants in the house of the nation: Fictions of truth in twentieth century Egyptian literature
This dissertation examines the emergence, development, and internal crises of the regime of literary representation that emerged in Egypt at the turn of the twentieth century. It traces the trajectory of this symbolic system through exploring the shifts in the representation of domestic servants as well as the analogous shifts in the national imaginary. In a wider sense, the dissertation is also a study of a certain kind of servitude that marks the relationship and the mutual captivity that ties writers in this tradition to the abstract concept of al-sha'b, the people. It details how, within the institution of Egyptian literature and the symbolic system it gave rise to, both the writer and his/her objects of writing desires are constituted and maintained. It is there, the dissertation argues, that the figure of the writer is produced, endowed with desires, with an idea of how a writer should be like, what set of beliefs and values he/she should believe in, which causes he/she should identify with (and if necessary risk his/her personal safety and freedom for,) and what the proper materials for writing are. In sum, the dissertation examines the space in which the very idea of a "writer" is constituted while taking into consideration the irreducible complexity of the deep entanglements that tie the writer in this tradition with his/her objects of writing desires.
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http://schema.org/description
- "This dissertation examines the emergence, development, and internal crises of the regime of literary representation that emerged in Egypt at the turn of the twentieth century. It traces the trajectory of this symbolic system through exploring the shifts in the representation of domestic servants as well as the analogous shifts in the national imaginary. In a wider sense, the dissertation is also a study of a certain kind of servitude that marks the relationship and the mutual captivity that ties writers in this tradition to the abstract concept of al-sha'b, the people. It details how, within the institution of Egyptian literature and the symbolic system it gave rise to, both the writer and his/her objects of writing desires are constituted and maintained. It is there, the dissertation argues, that the figure of the writer is produced, endowed with desires, with an idea of how a writer should be like, what set of beliefs and values he/she should believe in, which causes he/she should identify with (and if necessary risk his/her personal safety and freedom for,) and what the proper materials for writing are. In sum, the dissertation examines the space in which the very idea of a "writer" is constituted while taking into consideration the irreducible complexity of the deep entanglements that tie the writer in this tradition with his/her objects of writing desires."@en
- "Furthermore, this dissertation seeks to write the history of a severe literary and intellectual crisis that intensified in the 1990s. It highlights the roots and the paths through which this deadlock traveled. This deadlock, the dissertation shows, is primarily one of literary representation, of the failed project of establishing a connection with al-sha'b, of the increasing doubts in the function of both the writer and the act of writing itself. It is the outcome of a growing sense of failure that is omnipresent today in the Egyptian literary and cultural scenes and a result of the widespread belief that both the Arab Renaissance, Nahda, and the post-colonial Arab states have not succeeded in accomplishing their desired goals."@en
http://schema.org/genre
- "Dissertations, Academic"@en
http://schema.org/name
- "Servants in the house of the nation: Fictions of truth in twentieth century Egyptian literature"@en