Arab Literary Travels

Zainab's Annotated Bibliography

Visual/Cultral Cues:
  1. TV Über. “Schoolhouse Rock - ''The Great American Melting Pot''.” Online video clip. YouTube. Feb. 26, 2013. Web. April 04, 2016.
This source is a visual cue for America, which Hend’s son represents, because he is ready to assimilate into its ideals and is ahead of Hend in its language and attitudes. I chose this video, because it is a simplistic and optimistic view of America from the eyes of a naïve immigrant child where “any kid can be president,” (though not realizing that his origins would not make that an option). Hend has to view America as her home, because she lives there now, and it is the future for her and her son.
  1. Honey-Red Robe. Digital Image. wanelo.com. Web. April 04, 2016. <https://wanelo.com/shop/red-satin-robe>.
I chose a honey-colored robe with red flowers (or the best I could find of that description) to represent Hend’s mother who represents her home in Egypt. Seeing her mother in this robe all the time was a part of Hend’s childhood in Egypt, during a time when she had the potential of having a life stuck at home just like her mother in the future. Wearing a robe all the time shows that a person does not go out of their house much, which was the opposite of what Hend wanted to do as soon as possible.
  1. 'Little House.' Digital Image. foreverloyal.wordpress.com. Web. April 04, 2016. <https://foreverloyal.wordpress.com/category/parenting/>.
This image represents home whenever Hend or anyone in the novel imagines home to be a certain way or hopes for a certain kind of home. This recalls the time when Hend would play ‘little house,’ showing that Hend’s ideas of what home should look like were instilled in her from a very young age, but this is not at all what home looks like, or how she wants it to look like in the future.
  1. The Arabian Nights. Digital Image. mostarfresh.com. Web. April 04, 2016. <http://mostarfresh.com/node/108>.
The Arabian Nights is home for Mohammed the waiter, who works there in the coffeehouse in Bay Ridge. Arab exiles, refugees, and immigrants congregate there to use it as a safe haven amongst the identity crisis, homesickness, and lack of belonging they feel in New York. Hend frequents here too, this home within a home, in order to hold on to what she is familiar to.
 
Background Sources: 

1. Abu-Lughod, Lila. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Update with a new preface. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Web.
I found this source at the UT library. This book discusses gender relations in Bedouin society through analyzing their poetry. I think this would be useful to understand Hend’s experience of home in her village in Egypt.

2. Al-Ghadeer, Moneera. Desert Voices : Bedouin Women's Poetry in Saudi Arabia. London: I.B.Tauris, 2009. Ebook Library. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
I found this source on the UT library database, and it was available as an e-book. This book also analyzes poetry, but exclusively that of Bedouin women’s. I think this source would be useful to understand a Hend’s, her mother, the Guest’s, and her grandmother’s point of views and how they differed in Hend’s community.

3. "Bedouin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
I found this source on Encyclopedia Britannica online. This entry gives an overview of what exactly a Bedouin is. I think this is useful to understand Hend’s link to her ancestors and what that meant for her childhood growing up and how it shaped her home in that sense.

4. Bendaas, Yasmin. "The Story of Algeria's Traditional Tattoos." Your Middle East. N.p., 28 July 2013. Web. <http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/features/the-story-of-algerias-traditional-tattoos_16675>.
I found this article on the Your Middle East website. I was curious about the tattoos that Hend describes seeing on the Guest and grandmother Zaiyneb, and I wanted to know their significance. I think this article is useful, because it shows how Bedouin’s wore home on their sleeve and proudly presented it, whereas her son rejects the idea of being even Egytian.
 

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