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Can Books Save the Earth?: A digital anthology of green literature

Article Summary by Toffer L.

          In Nature in Arab American Literature by Bujupaj Ismet, Ismet Argues that ecocriticism is a set of critical approaches that one uses to read literature and identify the relationship humans have with nature, place, and environment. The works used in this journal are Mohja Kahf : “Asphodels are News”, and Naomi Shihab Nye: “Here and Here and Here”. His article is an examination of Arab American literature through an ecocritical lens, analyzing human (Arab American) relationships with their current place in relation to where they came from. For the average Arab American their place, often times is doubled as they feel disconnected or exiled from home and their culture. As these places are not physically connected due to trauma or displacement, nature can serve as a way to connect them.
          Ismet feels that American Literature expresses the melding of culture as America’s diversity is vast. America may have a lot of diversity but this does not mean, by any means that all people are welcomed and accepted. In fact, Arab American literature often times incorporates a theme of not belonging perhaps due to America’s opinion about the Muslim world for the last 20-30 years. As American literature may embrace the cultures of the nation, Ismet argues that Arab American literature may have a more wholesome or comprehensive view of the world, compared to the views of someone who never leaves home.
          As Ismet compared Arab American literature to American opinions of the world, it is also important to realize that most of Arab culture is a melding pot of the world. The Muslim world is very large and incorporates many different races, ethnicities, and sects. Even the physical location (place) of many Arab nations are at the end of the west and the beginning of the east where culture and people combine.
          The best example of all of this may be the first peom Ismet examines Asphodelsare News by Mohja Kahf. As Ismet writes, “it is difficult to read Lisa Suhair Majaj’s poetry without immediately sensing the primacy of nature in it, and thus noticing the lack critical literature exploring the representation of nature in her work” (Ismet 2). Kahf being a Palestinian American who was educated in Lebanon and America is going to have a pretty interesting perspective. The writing full of references to fig and olive trees, the fig being a symbol of all Arabs and the olive tree a symbol of Palestine.
          Ultimately Ismet would like America to take an ecocritical approach to Arab American literature in an attempt to better understand Muslims living in America. He believes many works of Arab American literature to be immensely political and connected to the climate of American life. He goes as far to say that if readers do not begin to analyze all texts with an ecocritical lens then we may be all missing the point the writer was attempting to make.


Ismet, Bujupaj. “Nature in Arab American Literature”, European journal
of American studies. Online Vol 10, no 2. 14 August 2015. 2/24/16

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