Transitory Masculinities in Post-9/11 Arab American Literature Written by Women

Abstract

In The Transnational Studies Reader, Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt explain that “human social formations and processes have always been trans-border and trans-boundary” (1). This is particularly true in the United States, which has inherently been a transnational country, made up of immigrants since its very inception. Taking up this idea, the present article explores the particular transitory positionalities of Arabs in the United States, and in particular the unsettlement of traditional manhoods placed in the metaphorical border between the Arab world and the United States, analyzing the alternative potentialities stemming from this displacement. To do so, this chapter examines the specific transnational configurations of Arab American masculinity in three post-9/11 Arab American novels: Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan (2003), Alicia Erian’s Towelhead (2005), and Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home (2008), all of which are the authors’ debut novels and focus on the coming of age of Arab American girls in the United States. ¹ These books place Arab male characters and their daughters in a diasporic setting in the United States and expound on the complexity of borders, allowing for an analysis of how national, ethnic, and gender identity change as part of the refugee and immigrant experience. In so doing, they allow for a tracing of the construction of Arab diasporic masculinity in the post-9/11 United States.²