Abstract
The essay examines the tensions inherent in teaching dystopian texts (in this case, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four) while considering the significance of tradition and culture in the Arab world. English literature teachers in the Gulf Cooperation Council often feel pressured to follow curricula set by the Ministry of Education, avoiding the potential for controversy in favor of canonical stability. Others, however, seek to provoke, or de- and/or re-center certain ideas, themes, plots or meanings to address the cultural politics and meet the learner’s needs in the non-Anglophone setting. English literature can be received in ways that “distort” or “destabilize” Anglocentric ideas, a thorny and pressing endeavor that necessitates striding worlds and bridging cultural divides for both students and teachers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abudabbeh, Nuha. 2005. Arab Families: An Overview. In Ethnicity and Family Therapy, eds. M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano, N. GarciaPreto, 423–36. New York: Guilford.
AlAleeli, Sarah. 2019. Internationalization of Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates: Opportunities and Fears. In The Wiley Handbook of Global Workplace Learning, eds. Vanessa Hammler Kenon and Sunay Vasant Palsole, 323–42. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Ashcraft, Nikki. 2008. English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education: Human and Pedagogical Impacts. In Education Landscapes in the 21st Century: Cross-Cultural Challenges and Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives, eds. Iris Guske and Bruce C. Swaffield, 149–161. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Blum, William. 2002. Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. London: Zed Books.
Booker, M. Keith. 1994. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. 2008. Sexuality in Islam. London: Routledge.
Chambers, Ellie, and Marshall Gregory. 2006. Teaching and Learning English Literature. London: Sage.
Collins, Donald, Catheleen Jordan and Heather Coleman. 2013. An Introduction to Family Social Work. Belmont, CA: Cenage.
DeJong, Jocelyn. 2005. Health: Sexually Transmitted Diseases. In Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality and Health,Vol. 3, ed. Suad Joseph, 219–21. Leiden: Brill.
Diallo, Ibrahima Mané. 2014. Emirati Students Encounter Western Teachers: Tensions and Identity Resistance. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives 11.2: 1–14.
English, James F. 2012. The Global Future of English Studies. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Gobert, Melanie. 2015. Taboo Topics in the ESL/EFL Classroom in the Gulf Region. In Intercultural Communication with Arabs: Studies in Educational, Professional and Societal Contexts, ed. Rana Raddawi, 109–26. Singapore: Springer.
Gupta, Suman. 2015. Philology and Global English Studies: Retracing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Horan, Thomas. 2018. Desire and Empathy in Twentieth Century Dystopian Fiction. Charleston: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hurreiz, Sayyid Hamid. 2013. Folklore and Folklife in the United Arab Emirates. Abingdon: Routledge.
Ilkkaracan, Pinar. 2002. Women, Sexuality, and Social Change in the Middle East and the Maghreb. Social Research 69.3: 753–79.
Landt, Susan M. 2006. Multicultural Literature and Young Adolescents: A Kaleidoscope of Opportunity. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 49.8: 690–97.
Lee, Evelyn and Matthew R. Mock. 2005. Asian Families. In Ethnicity and Family Therapy, eds. M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano and N. Garcia-Preto, 269–89. New York: Guilford.
Machiavelli, Niccoló. 2005. The Prince. Trans. and ed. Peter Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Millett, Kate. 2000. Sexual Politics. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Naughton, Gerald D. 2016. Tropes of Crisis and Teaching Western Literature in the Middle East. In Challenges and Channels: English Language and Literature at a Crossroads of Cultures, ed. Ikram A. I. Elsherif, 57–68. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
Nisbett, Richard E. 2005. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why. London: Nicholas Brealey.
Nydell, Margaret. 2006. Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times. Boston: Intercultural Press.
Orwell, George. 2013. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin.
Ramanathan, Vaidehi, Bonny Norton, and Alastair Pennycook. 2010. Preface. In Contending with Globalization in World Englishes, eds. Mukul Saxena and Tope Omoniyi, xv–xviii. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Ronin, Vladimir. 2001. Russia: Outside Europe? In Russia and Europe in a Changing International Environment, eds. Katlijn Malfliet and Lien Verpoest, 117–32. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Sholkamy, Hania. 2008. The Empowerment of Women: Rights and Entitlements in Arab Worlds. In Gender, Society and Development: Gender, Rights and Development: A Global Sourcebook, eds. Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay and Shamim Meer, 85–100. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.
Sillen, Samuel. 2001. Masses and Mainstream. In George Orwell: The Critical Heritage, ed. Jeffrey Meyers, 274–76. London: Routledge.
Singh, Michael, Peter Kell, and Ambigapathy Pandian. 2002. Appropriating English: Innovation in the Global Business of English Language Teaching. New York: Peter Lang.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2012. An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Thaler, Engelbert. 2008. Teaching English Literature. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh.
Viswanathan, Gauri. 2015. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. 2006. We. Trans. Natasha Randall. New York: Modern Library.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Al-Jubouri, F.A.J. (2021). De-, and Re-Centering: Teaching Dystopian Texts to Emirati Students. In: Chilton, M., Clark, S., Yoshihara, Y. (eds) Asian English. Asia-Pacific and Literature in English. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3513-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3513-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-3512-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-3513-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)