Call for Proposals
Arab American Literature
Fall 2006 issue of MELUS Journal (Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S.)

Since September 11th teachers and scholars of American literatures have
been trying to find ways to incorporate literature written by Arab
Americans into literature courses. Despite the evolving canon of American
literature over the past few decades, Arab American writers like Ameen
Rihani or Kahlil Gibran have been overlooked though more contemporary Arab
American writers like Nathalie Handal or Diana Abu Jaber may be granted a
token slot in a literature course. While it is important to include these
and other writers into the American literary canon, this act in isolation
does not allow students or researchers to glean the full complexity of the
historical and political circumstances that brought people from the Arab
world to North America beginning in the early twentieth century.

This issue of MELUS seeks to engage with Arab American literature through
a range of historical and political issues that have conditioned Arab
American intellectual and cultural work in the United States. Articles
should engage with representational issues of Arabs in the United States
and the contestation around Arab self-representation as well. Articles may
focus on the organizational politics of Arabs in the U.S. and their
efforts to build community-based initiatives that are social and
political. Essay may also focus on the history of Arab language
publications in the United States. The articles we seek for this special
issue may address 9/11 as it looks back upon that event, but we would also
like to see articles that attempt to assess the impact of 9/11.

For this special issue of MELUS journal, we invite articles that engage
with literature and culture, but from an interdisciplinary and theoretical
perspective. Essays should be 4000-6000 words in length (including notes
and works cited), clearly written, theoretically informed, and relevant to
the socio-political context from which the work emerged.

Please email a 500 word proposal as a Microsoft Word attachment along with
a brief curriculum vitae with complete contact information by September
30, 2004 to both:

Professor Marcy Newman, Boise State University, mnewman_at_boisestate.edu

and

Professor Salah Hassan, Michigan State University, hassans3_at_msu.edu

Note: Completed essays are due (postmarked by) January 15, 2004. No
previously published or simultaneous submissions, please.

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Received on Thu May 27 2004 - 21:38:34 EDT