A consuming fever of history: A study of five urgent flashbacks in Arabic film and literature

This study examines five texts of creative historical production in Arabic literature and film: (1) Mahmud Darwish's poems on Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), (2) Radwa `Ashur's novel Thulathiyyat Ghirnata (Granada Trilogy), (3) Yusif Chahine's film Destiny, (4) Saadallah Wannus' play Munamnamat Tarikhiyyah (Historical Miniatures), and (5) Bensalem Himmich's novel Majnun al-Hukm (Obsessed with Power). The five texts are analyzed in terms of their urgency and their ability to evoke a cathartic effect. Sometimes nostalgic and sometimes critical, many Arab novelists, poets, directors, artists and intellectuals have been invoking, critiquing, refashioning and deploying contentious historical events and persons. History is one of most compelling stages for contemporary Arab cultural production and this dissertation analyzes how five specific texts that participate in this staging and how the representation of history is crafted by four modern Arab writers and one filmmaker. Both the representation of al-Andalus and dynamic historical figures in Arab and Islamic history are imagined in order to address specific issues such as Palestine, the role of the intellectual, the Arab nation, and the concept of tyranny. Each text provokes what is termed as cathartic effect because of the strong tragic mode found in their respective literary and filmic forms. In the end, this work reveals both important literary trends and ideas emanating from prominent and contemporary Arab writers and artists.