مجال
التميز

تميز دراسي وبحثي

البحوث المنشورة

البحث (1):

عنوان البحث:

The
Impact of Socio-Cultural Contexts on the Reception of Contemporary Saudi
Novels

رابط إلى البحث:

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تاريخ النشر:

01/02/2016

موجز عن البحث:

This
paper examines how the socio‐cultural contexts have affected
readers’ responses to particular Saudi novels. It draws on Fish’s concept of
“interpretive communities”, which argues that interpretation is an
institutional practice, and that consequently readers hold shared prior
assumptions that constrain their interpretive strategies (Fish 1980). Not
surprisingly, then, some responses to Saudi authors are based on the
ideological belief that their novels consist of acts of rebellion against a conservative
culture. A close reading of the conflict between Saudi novelists and the
social responses to their works can reflect how cultural and social contexts
shape the reception of contemporary Saudi novels, and can also help to
construct public attitudes toward these texts. Saudi novelists have faced a
number of social constraints and factors which have affected the development
of the novel in Saudi Arabia. For example, works by al‐Gosaibi, Munif, Khal, al‐Hamad,
al‐Mohaimeed, Alsanea, and al‐Juhani
have all been banned because they were seen to pose a major threat to the
dominant, patriarchal Saudi ideology. While the social controversy around
these writers was raging, some other writers applied self‐censorship to avoid touching upon what were perceived to be the
most sensitive issues. 

البحث (2):

عنوان البحث:

Defying
convention: Saudi women writers and the shift from periphery to centre

رابط إلى البحث:

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تاريخ النشر:

03/10/2016

موجز عن البحث:

Since
9/11, a new generation of Saudi novelists, particularly women authors, has
begun to attract the attention of readers and scholars in both the Arab and
Western world. As the demand for Saudi fiction increased, Western publishers
became increasingly interested in publishing translations. Despite the fact
that some of these novels were initially banned in Saudi Arabia, they went on
to attract a broad readership in the global marketplace, following their
translation into English. This article focuses on those Saudi women writers
who have made an important contribution to the development of Saudi
literature. Firstly, this article reflects on the complex role that the
socio-cultural context of Saudi Arabia has played and continues to play in
the process of the development of Saudi women’s writing. Then, the focus
shifts to consider how the process of translation has contributed to the
dissemination of novels by Saudi women, transforming these into ‘World Literature’
within the global literary market.

المؤتمرات العلمية:

المؤتمر (1):

عنوان المؤتمر:

The WEI International Academic Conference
on Education and Humanities

تاريخ الإنعقاد:

11/04/2016

مكان
الإنعقاد:

Vienna, Austria

طبيعة المشاركة:

Paper presentation

عنوان المشاركة:

The Impact of Ultraconservative Readings on the
Reception of Contemporary Saudi Novels

ملخص المشاركة:

This paper identifies the combination of
factors that have conditioned reader responses to particular Saudi novels. It
draws on Fish’s concept of ‘interpretive communities’, which argues that
interpretation is an institutional practice, and that consequently readers
hold shared prior assumptions that constrain their interpretive strategies
(Fish, 1980, 306). Not surprisingly, then, some responses to Saudi authors
are based on the ideological belief that their novels consist of acts of
rebellion against a conservative culture. A close reading of the conflict
between Saudi novelists and the social responses to their works can reflect
how cultural and social contexts shape the reception of contemporary Saudi
novels, and can also help to construct public attitudes towards these texts.
Saudi novelists have faced a number of social constraints and factors which have
affected the development of the novel in Saudi Arabia. For example, works by
al-Gosaibi, Munif, Khal, al-Hamad, al-Mohaimeed,
Alsanea and al-Juhani have all been banned because they were
seen to pose a major threat to the dominant, patriarchal Saudi ideology.
While the social controversy around these writers was raging, some other
writers applied self-censorship to avoid touching upon what were perceived to
be the most sensitive issues. However, some writers continue to criticise
extremist discourse and social tradition in their writings, the best-known
examples being al-Hamad and Khal. This paper explores the impact of
ultraconservative readings on the reception of their novels.

المؤتمر (2):

عنوان المؤتمر:

BRISMES Annual Conference 2016: Networks: Connecting
the Middle East through Time, Space and Cyberspace

تاريخ الإنعقاد:

13/07/2016

مكان
الإنعقاد:

Lampeter, UK

طبيعة المشاركة:

Paper presentation

عنوان المشاركة:

The Saudi Novel Goes Global: Modes of ‘Virtual’
Reception

ملخص المشاركة:

Since 9/11, a new
generation of Saudi novelists, particularly women authors, has emerged,
challenging socio-cultural taboos. Banned in their homeland and receiving
mixed reviews from elsewhere in the Arab world, controversy surrounding these
Saudi novels in the Arab media made them into bestsellers and brought them to
the attention of the Western publishers. Translation into foreign languages,
in particular English, has put them on the map of World Literature. This
study explores the role of media, which is one of key factors that might have
a great influence on the reception of novels under discussion. It is well
known that media can significantly affect a novel’s success with general
readers in the target community.

المؤتمر (3):

عنوان المؤتمر:

The
Annual Conference of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES)
2015

تاريخ الإنعقاد:

24 – 26 /06/ 2015

مكان
الإنعقاد:

London, UK

طبيعة المشاركة:

Paper presentation

عنوان المشاركة:

Contemporary Saudi Women Writers: Lifting the Veil

ملخص المشاركة:

Since 9/11, a new generation of Saudi novelists,
particularly female authors, have begun to attract the attention of readers
and scholars in both the Arab and the Western world. This paper will focus on
two of these novels, namely Rajaa al-Sanea’s Banat al-Riyadh (2005)
translated as Girls of Riyadh (2007), and Seba al-Harez’s Al-Akharun (2006)
translated as The Others (2009). By openly addressing sexual and religious
taboos in their novels, these two writers challenged both stereotypical
images of Saudi women and the traditional cultural hegemony. Despite the fact
that both these works were initially banned in Saudi Arabia, they went on to
attract a broad readership in the global marketplace, especially following
their translation into English. Drawing on Casanova’s (2004) concept of
‘World Literature’, this paper will explore the role which English language
literary publishers in the West have played in ‘liberating’ these novels from
the restrictions imposed by Saudi national literary space through the process
of translation. It will also reflect on the extent to which this re-categorisation
of their work as ‘World Literature’ has helped female Saudi writers to gain
new audience and to challenge previous ideas about centre/ periphery in the
Arab literary world.

المؤتمر (4):

عنوان المؤتمر:

International
Conference for academic disciplines: International Journal of Arts and
Sciences

تاريخ الإنعقاد:

28/06 – 01/07/2016

مكان
الإنعقاد:

Venice, Italy

طبيعة المشاركة:

Paper presentation

عنوان المشاركة:

Literary
Prizes: Redrawing the Boundaries Between the Periphery and the Centre of
Arabic Literature

ملخص المشاركة:

This paper explores
the impact of literary prizes on the production and reception of the Saudi
novel. Literary prizes have helped to raise the profile of novels written in
Arabic prompting their translation into various foreign languages. There has
been a considerable rise in the number of literary prizes awarded to Saudi
novelists in particular, accompanied by a growth in sales of their book in
the period following their win. Thus, the Saudi novelists who have won the
International Prize for Arabic Fiction, such as Abdo Khal and Raja Alem have
gone on to become some of the popular and highly rated writers in the Arab
world. This paper aims to examine the role which literary prizes play in
bringing particular novels to the attention of various readers, and to what
extent these prizes have helped award-winning or short-listed Saudi novels to
become bestsellers prompting their translation and subsequently joining the
world literary market.