Skip to content
Home/ With the Face of the Enemy: Arab American Literature Since 9/11 Volume 40
With the Face of the Enemy: Arab American Literature Since 9/11 Volume 40

With the Face of the Enemy: Arab American Literature Since 9/11 Volume 40

by Motyl, Katharina
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9783593510118

With the Face of the Enemy takes a serious look at how the aesthetics of Arab American literature reflects the many psychosocial consequences of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan on an underexamined group of writers.

Over the past two decades, the events of September 11, 2001, have inspired a range of literary responses, as American authors grappled with new manifestations of terror, surveillance, and global war. With the Face of the Enemy focuses specifically on the writings of Arab American authors, whose perspectives in the post-9/11 US grant them unique insights into both the Western and Arab worlds. Using the lens of postcolonial literary theory, Katharina Motyl explores how the events of 9/11 turned Arab Americans into enemies within their own country. Moving away from discussions of the War on Terror that declare it a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West, the fiction and poetry dissected in this book alternates between deconstructing neo-Orientalist stereotypes and taking a critical look at the patriarchal structures that dominate Arab family life. Motyl pays special attention to texts written by Arab American women, who have radically advocated for self-determination in areas like sexuality and mode of dress, rejecting the long-held stereotypes of Arab women as either victims or sex objects. With the Face of the Enemy takes a serious look at how the aesthetics of Arab American literature reflects the many psychosocial consequences of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan on an underexamined group of writers.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateMay 23, 2025
ISBN-103593510111
ISBN-139783593510118
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-03-09 01:04
$47.08
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Monday, September 21, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Middle Eastern
See all
Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today
<p><em>Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today</em> is set out to show what is beneath the surface, under the appearances of skin, body, colour and provenance, and not the cultural fixities or partial views detached from the realities of communities, cultures and practices from the area. Through 12 chapters, <em>Under the Skin</em> brings together artistic practices and complex histories informed by feminisms from diverse cultural and geographical contexts: Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.</p><p>The aim is not to represent all of the countries from the Middle East and North Africa, but to present a cross-section that reflects the variety of nations, cultures, languages and identities across the area-including those of Berber, Mizrahi Jews, Kurdish, Muslim, Christian, Arab, Persian and Armenian peoples. It thus considers art informed by feminisms through translocal and transnational lenses of diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious groups not solely as a manifestation of multiple and complex social constructions, but also as a crucial subject of analysis in the project of decolonising art history and contemporary visual culture. The volume offers an understanding on how art responds to and shapes cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality, ethnicity/race, religion, tradition, modernity and contemporaneity, and local and global politics. And it strives to strike a balance by connecting the studies of scholars based in the European-North American geography with those attached to the institutions in the Middle East and North Africa in order to stimulate different feminist and decolonial perspectives and debates on art and visual culture from the area.</p>
$92.70
Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400-1700
Indiana University Press
$35.65
Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean
Available
$29.76
Intimacies of Global Sufism: Ne'matullahi Shrines and Material Culture Between Iran and India
Firouzeh, Peyvand
$88.66
Intimacies of Global Sufism: Ne'matullahi Shrines and Material Culture Between Iran and India
Firouzeh, Peyvand
$39.57
Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity
Becker, Cynthia
$29.18