The Ambivalent Holistic Nature of Nationalism explored in Arab-American Drama; the Long–Ignored Genre

Abstract

The idea behind writing a research about Arab-American drama came to me when a highly efficient scholar -who knows a lot about Arab-American literature in general and intercultural theatre in specific -asked me if there is such a thing as Arab-American drama.Her query tempted me to search for writers who were often excluded from both the Arab-American literature genre as well as the American theatrical canon.Arab-Americans have produced a large amount of fiction and poetry that was the focus of many literary papers and dissertations; however limited number of academic research ever discussed drama written by Arab-American writers.My paper aims at proving that Arab-American playwrights have produced a considerable amount of drama that makes it a distinct genre by itself.Through reviewing different modern Arab-American plays written in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I concluded that playwrights often face a dilemma of being stuck between their past and their future.Some write about the importance of dissolving in the American community, embracing its culture and becoming one with it while others keep reminding their readers to preserve their authentic customs and traditions and reject all that defies them.The ambivalence of their language shows their wavered trials to form an identity and define nationalism only to discover that it cannot be preserved by segregation.It is holistic and can only be explicable by its reference to the whole.