Featured Research
The Rewriting of Characters’ Dialogue: Translating Literary Dialectal Dialogue in Saudi and Egyptian Novels (Eman Suraid Almutairi)
The research aims to identify the procedures carried out by translators to deal with translating Literary Dialectal Dialogue (LDD) in the English translations of contemporary Saudi and Egyptian novels. The significance of this study is that it focuses on two Arabic dialects and examines what are the translation procedures if these procedures shift with changes in dialect. The study involves an analysis of random selections of LDD that were extracted from several Saudi and Egyptian novels.
‘Every one of you is now a soldier’: war metaphors in Jordanian official discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic (Yousef Barahmeh)
In this article, we examine the use of war metaphors in Jordanian official discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21, through an analysis of videos of public statements and media releases made by Jordanian government officials at press conferences and interviews with local media outlets which were disseminated through social media.
Paradigms of Power in Postcolonial Translation: DYNAMIC TRANSFORMATION OF ARABIC DYSTOPIAN NOVELS (Rawad Alhashmi)
This essay examines Mohammad Rabie’s Otared (Arabic 2014; English 2016) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (Arabic 2013; English 2018) with an emphasis on the transformation of dystopia. I argue that Rabie and Saadawi have constructed their dystopian novels under the influence of Western literature while being directly affected by the dire political situations that they find themselves in.
Laughing at revolutionary times: the socio-linguistic and pragmatic functions of Jordanian political humour after the Arab Spring (Yousef Barahmeh)
This article investigates the socio-linguistic and pragmatic functions of Jordanian political humour after the Arab Spring revolutions from the perspective of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival and the carnivalesque (folk humour). The analysis undertaken here of Jordanian political humour reveals a peculiar use of carnivalesque political humour via the use of humour as a socio-linguistic and pragmatic device that allows the ridicule of the government but not of the monarch.
The Manama riots 1947: Bahraini Jews between Palestine and Gulf labour politics (Eirik Kvindesland)
In December 1947, following the UN decision to divide Palestine, Bahrain’s Jewish community became the target of communal violence. As crowds protested the partition plan, Manama’s Jewish quarter was attacked and looted. In their aftermath, the Manama riots have been understood as a nationalist show of anger against Zionism, unfortunately unleashed against local Bahraini Jews. However, a close reading of events shows the riot as complex event involving local labour politics, anti-colonialism and Shi’a religious rituals.
Not Anymore in Politics: Theorising the Young Egyptian Muslim Brothers’ Political Disengagement in the aftermath of the 2013 Military Coup (Doha Abdelgawad & Shaimaa Magued)
This article relies on the life story narratives of 48 young members of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers in identifying the different reasons behind their political disengagement in the aftermath of the 2013 military coup. Unlike the social Movement Theory scholarly writings addressing Islamists’ political disengagement within a limited scope of analysis that focuses on members leaving their groups rather than politics, this study presents a multi-layered approach that examines the interplay between youth’s personal experiences, the repressive macro political conditions, and the organizational decay in shaping young Muslim Brothers’ positions towards political activism.
Reconstituted authoritarianism: Islam, service provision and the state in al-Sisi’s Egypt (Neil Russell)
Social service provision by non-state actors is cited as an important factor in maintaining authoritarian regime stability in the Middle East. By facilitating their growth regimes ease the burden on their own shrinking resources and avoid resultant social unrest. But these arrangements are not politically risk free, with Islamic opposition groups able to develop substantial social capital. After the Arab Spring, in which regimes faced mass mobilization, and in some cases, nascent democratization, authoritarian elites adapted and transformed their tactics of control to contain newly mobilized societies.
States of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan (José Ciro Martínez)
On any given day in Jordan, more than nine million residents eat approximately ten million loaves of khubz 'arabi - the slightly leavened flatbread known to many as pita. Some rely on this bread to avoid starvation; for others it is a customary pleasure. Yet despite its ubiquity in accounts of Middle East politics and society, rarely do we consider how bread is prepared, consumed, discussed, and circulated - and what this all represents. With this book, José Ciro Martínez examines khubz 'arabi to unpack the effects of the welfare program that ensures its widespread availability.
The Arabs and the Muslims Between Diaspora and Transnationalism (Mohammed Alrmizan)
Both Arab and Muslim migrants have noticeable populations in all parts of the world. This article qualitatively investigates the Arabs, the Muslims, and mainly diaspora and transnationalism theories from historical and social understandings, based on primary and secondary sources. It engages conceptually in defining Arabs and Muslims through the lenses of diaspora and transnationalism theories, discusses theoretical issues and explores the status of the Arab and the Muslim diaspora(s) and transnational communities through primary data and the findings of the Global Muslim Diaspora Project, which surveyed 7,147 participants between 2018 and 2019.
Islamic Revolutionary Ideology and its Narratives: The Continued Relevance of the Islamic Republic’s Ideology (Olivia Glombitza)
Is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s revolutionary ideology still relevant more than 40 years after the revolution? Is it still relevant in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy? While the Islamic Republic’s ideology undoubtedly developed alongside its institutions over the course of 40 years, this article argues that its revolutionary ideology continues to remain relevant and in fact important.
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