Constructing a counter-memory of the stereotypical Arab female in Arabic fantasy literature

我的项目包括一部6万字的青少年奇幻小说《说书人》（The Storyteller），以及附带的2万字的反思性评论，这是第一个将伊斯兰女权主义和混杂理论应用于阿拉伯奇幻文学的综合研究。《说书人》讲述了一个身份支离破碎的年轻女孩试图找到自己归属的旅程。我将在伊斯兰女性主义和混合理论的现代背景下，实现从传统阿拉伯史诗文学中继承的女性英雄主义的旧模式。伊斯兰女权主义协商宗教和女权主义的身份，使西方女权主义关于阿拉伯妇女的规范话语出现问题。它的修辞手段，多重批判，认为身份的不一致是对外部沉默的反应（库克，妇女声称伊斯兰教，2001）。我将在三个不同的时期——史诗、现代和当代青少年小说——研究阿拉伯奇幻文学中女性身份表现的转变。我的阅读将受到混杂理论、身份政治和伊斯兰女权主义的影响。使用复合小说形式，《讲故事的人》将是一个示范性和调查性的练习，探讨如何在短篇小说中孤立地展示身份，同时在小说中呈现一个连贯的人物。我打算描述身份，包括行动、文化和动机，是如何被外部因素，如压迫性政权、关系动态和情节所塑造的，因此不是一个“单一的、统一的身份”（Cooke, Women Claim Islam, 2001）。该项目将通过将伊斯兰女性主义理论追溯应用于阿拉伯奇幻史诗文学来研究现代文本是否继承了女性英雄主义的旧模式，从而解决学术上的差距。此外，关于库克的修辞手段——多重批判——如何被实施、调查和与后殖民混杂理论联系起来的研究很少。我的第二个目标是探索如何在宗教教义的范围内看待梦幻元素，从而尝试协商宗教和女权主义意识形态，以及这些神秘元素如何对女性身份的调查至关重要，因为它们在代表被殖民主体的混杂性方面具有政治和社会颠覆性力量。我将研究Jayussi翻译的《Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan历险记》（1999）和里昂的《一千零一夜故事集》（2010）中的叙事和结构手法。我的研究重点将围绕这些文本展开。我将追踪与女性英雄主义和现代文本中的幻想有关的已确定的叙事和结构传统的遗产，马哈福兹的《一千零一夜与白天记》（1995）和《乌合之众的史诗》（1994），同时也探索混杂性。之后，我将研究青少年奇幻小说中女性身份的当代表现，包括阿迪耶的《愤怒与黎明》（2015）和奇卡雷利的《最后的Namsara》（2017）。这个项目的批判性阅读和创造性实践将相互影响。我将讨论阿拉伯文学中女性英雄主义的消失。我打算找出女性角色身份的细微差别，并解构她们有一个单一的、“东方的”、被动身份的想法（库克，《妇女宣称伊斯兰》，2001年）。这项研究的影响将是广泛的。西方和非西方国家的刻板印象将被解构，学术进入其他文化的历史遗产将进一步研究和实施在实践中。

My project, comprising of a 60,000-word Young Adult fantasy composite novel, The Storyteller, and accompanying 20,000-word reflective commentary, is the first comprehensive study applying Islamic feminism and hybridity theories to Arabic fantasy literature. The Storyteller is about the journey of a young girl with a fragmented identity attempting to find where she belongs. I will implement an old model of female heroism inherited from traditional Arabic epic literature in the modern context of Islamic feminist and hybridity theories. Islamic feminism negotiates religious and feminist identities, problematising the normative Western feminist discourse on Arab women. It's rhetorical device, multiple critique, considers inconsistencies in identity as a response to external silencing (Cooke, Women Claim Islam, 2001). I will examine the shift in representation of female identity in Arabic fantasy literature in three distinct periods, epic, modern and contemporary YA fiction. My reading will be shaped by hybridity theories, identity politics and Islamic feminism. Using the composite novel form, The Storyteller will be a demonstrative and investigative exercise into how identity can be shown in isolation in short stories, whilst also presenting a cohesive character in a novel. I intend to depict how identity, including actions, culture and motivations, are shaped by external factors such as oppressive regimes, relationship dynamics and plot, and thus is not a 'singular, unified identity' (Cooke, Women Claim Islam, 2001).This project will address the gap in scholarship by retroactively applying Islamic feminist theory to Arabic fantasy epic literature to examine whether modern texts have inherited an old model of female heroism. Additionally, there is little research on how Cooke's rhetorical device, multiple critique, can be implemented, investigated and linked with postcolonial theories of hybridity. My second objective is to explore how fantastic elements is viewed within the purview of religious doctrines, and thus an attempt at negotiating religious and feminist ideologies, and how these mystical elements are essential to the investigation of female identity due to their political and social subversive power in representing the hybridity of the colonised subject.I will investigate narrative and structural devices in Jayussi's translation of The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan (1999) and Lyons Tales from 1,001 Nights (2010). The crux of my research will centre around these texts. I will trace the heritage of identified narrative and structural traditions linking to female heroism and the fantastical in modern texts, Mahfouz's Arabian Nights and Days (1995) and The Epic of the Riff-Raff (1994), whilst also exploring hybridity. Thereafter, I will examine the contemporary representation of female identity in YA fantasy fiction, Ahdieh's The Wrath and the Dawn (2015) and Ciccarelli's The Last Namsara (2017).The critical reading and creative praxis of this project will inform each other. I will address the erasure of female heroism in Arabic literature. I intend to identify the nuances in the identity of female characters and deconstruct the idea that they have a single, 'oriental', passive identity (Cooke, Women Claim Islam, 2001). The impact of this research will be widespread. The stereotype in western and non-western countries will be deconstructed, scholarship into the historical heritage of other cultures will be further investigated and implemented in practice.