Embracing Glocality:

New Perspectives on Arab and Anglophone Arab Literature and Film

Glocalization—the simultaneous presence of global and local dynamics—offers a critical lens through which to examine Arab and Anglophone Arab cultural production. This special issue invites papers that explore how literary and cinematic texts from or about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region reflect, negotiate, or resist the pressures of global cultural flows while rooted in specific local contexts.

We welcome analyses of novels, memoirs, and films that embody aesthetic hybridity, linguistic plurality, or transnational politics, particularly works that unsettle Euro-American epistemologies and reconfigure identity, memory, and belonging. Submissions may also consider how Arab authors and filmmakers engage with global genres, adapt canonical narratives, or contribute to and disrupt world literary and cinematic systems.

Examples of relevant works include, but are not limited to:Capernaum by Nadine Labaki, The Swimmers by Sally El Hosaini, American East  by Hesham Issawi, Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea, An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine, The Kite Runner  by Khaled Hosseini.

Papers may address:

• Internationally awarded Arab novels and diasporic, Anglophone narratives (e.g. Hollywood and globally distributed films by Arab or Arab diaspora directors)
• Glocality and cultural translation in Arab literature and film
• Migrant, exilic, and autobiographical writing
• Arab women’s cinematic and literary interventions
• Rewritings of classical or Western texts (e.g. Arabian Nights, Frankenstein)
• Hybridity, (self-)Orientalization, and adaptation
• Global reception and Arab contribution to world literature and cinema

We invite proposals that critically engage with the notion of glocality as it shapes contemporary Arab artistic expression and reorients transnational cultural discourse.

Please email your abstracts to:

• Dr. Chrysavgi Papagianni (University of Patras)  Email: cpapagianni@upatras.gr
• Dr. Ileana Baird (Zayed University)                     Email: Ileana.baird@zu.ac.ae