• Afghanistan in Post-9/11 American Poetry: A Creative Response to Orientalism

    Author(s):
    Joydeep Chakraborty (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    2018 MLA Convention, American Literature, LLC 20th- and 21st-Century American
    Subject(s):
    American literature
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    post-9/11 literature, Postcolonial literature
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M69V76
    Abstract:
    On the basis of the assumption that poetic response to Edward Said’s Orientalism is rare, this article seeks to read three post-9/11 American poems on Afghanistan – “The Weavers” and “Burka Women” by Gerald Wheeler, and “Kabul 2002 (From Dislocations)” by Dr. Bronwyn Winter - as a significant intellectual departure from the standpoint alleged to be held by the previous American Orientalism. In his polemic, Said alleges that American Orientalism is devoid of literature, it is politically motivated and has a stereotypical view of Islam, internalizing many aspects of its European counterpart. The very fact that the poems under discussion are a part of American Orientalism, but characterized by a different perspective and written in a socio-political situation when certain other post-9/11 American poems confront the issue of Orientalism, potently makes the point that these poems can be taken as an implicit creative response to Orientalism. In this way, the three poems all of which appeared in An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind, a major anthology of 9/11 poetry published in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, constitute a landmark in the field of American Orientalism.
    Notes:
    Readers are earnestly requested to offer me scholarly feedback on this article
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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