Abstract
This article undertakes a cognitive stylistic investigation of the trial of Egyptian writer Ahmed Naji, who was prosecuted - and subsequently imprisoned - for 'disturbing public morals' by depicting sexual content in his novel Istikhdam al-Hayat [Using Life] (2014). The article presents a schematic model of the narrative roles, across narrative levels and text-world ontologies, mind-modelled by readers in literary experiences. This model forms the foundation of the analysis which is consequently able to map the interrelationships between the roles on enunciation and reception and to account for the complex array of ethical positions - relative to each narrative role - taken up by readers. The article offers a nuanced account of the ethics of reading which, by pioneering the application of stylistics to explore an Arabic cultural context, can also capture cultural difference. Ultimately, through situated analysis, this article uncovers the ideological forces involved in Ahmed Naji's trial and the disciminatory practices therein.
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Social Sciences (miscellaneous),Sociology and Political Science
Reference79 articles.
1. Benwell, B., Proctor, J. and Robinson, G. (2011) Not reading Brick Lane. New Formations 73: 90–116. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.73.06.2011
2. Bex, T., Burke, M. and Stockwell, P. (2000) Foreword. In T. Bex, M. Burke and P. Stockwell (eds) Contextualized Stylistics: In Honour of Peter Verdonk i-v. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
3. Booth, W. C. (1983 [1961]) The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd edn). London: Penguin Books. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226065595.001.0001
4. Booth, W. C. (1988) The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley, LA; London: University of California Press.
5. Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York; London: Routledge.
Cited by
5 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. From Medieval Utopia to Modern Dystopia;Palgrave Studies in Utopianism;2024
2. Revision;The Language of Siegfried Sassoon;2022
3. Chapter 6. “Why do you insist that Alana is not real?”;Linguistic Approaches to Literature;2021-02-08
4. The year’s work in stylistics 2019;Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics;2020-11
5. The “dissolving margins” of Elena Ferrante and the Neapolitan novels;Narrative Inquiry;2019-10-16