The Politics of Space and Identity in Middle Eastern-Australian Writing Cartographies of Belonging

PART I: URBAN SPACE AND THE ARAB-AUSTRALIAN TEEN
Chapter One: Social Spaces and Belonging in Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does My Head Look Big in This? and Ten Things I Hate About Me        
Chapter Two: Spatial Mobility in Western Sydney and the Quest for Self-Awareness in Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Tribe and The Lebs
PART II: NATURE, REFUGEES, AND THE POLITICS OF BORDERISATION   
Chapter Three: Spatial Politics and the Resisting Homo Sacer in Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison
PART III: MULTICULTURAL SPACE AND THE IRANIAN-AUSTRALIANS
Chapter Four: (Dis)owning a Space: “Multiculturalism” and its Discontents in Sam Dastyari’s One Halal of a Story
Chapter Five: A Sense of Place, Trauma, and Fantasy in Saeed Fassaei’s Rising from the Shadows: Revolution, War and the Journey that Made Me
PART IV: SPACE, GENDER AND MIGRATION
Chapter Six: Feminine TimeSpace and Mobility in Soheila Zanjani’s The Scattered Pearls
Chapter Seven: Identity, Body, and Space in Loubna Haikal’s Seducing Mr Maclean

Biography

Mohsen Hanif, associate professor at Kharazmi University, Tehran, works on English, postcolonial, and immigration literatures. His recent articles appear in Neophilologus, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, English Studies in Africa, CLCWeb, The Midwest Quarterly, and English Studies in Canada, among others. He coauthored the award-winning Indigenising Magical Realism in Iran (2019, Persian).

“Mohsen Hanif’s Cartographies of Belonging examines several Middle Eastern – Australian writers, some of whom, such as Randa Abdel-Fattah, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, and Behrouz Boochani, are well-known to students of contemporary Australian literature. With theoretical acuity and sociocultural specificity, Hanif examines how ideas of “home” in these migrant and diaspora writers are variegated and flexible, but also exert a palpable, inescapable pull. This is a valuable and confidently written book which will appeal to a diverse set of readers.”

Nicholas Birns, FAHA, New York University 

 

“Cartographies of Belonging offers a rich analysis of fictional works by transplanted Arabs and Iranians and their experiences of urban, natural, multicultural, gendered spaces in Australia.  Breaking new ground, it makes a significant contribution to the study of diasporas across the globe.”

Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine