مشخصات پژوهش

This research addresses a priority area within Arabic literary studies by foregrounding gender as a central analytical category in the interpretation of Iraqi diasporic fiction. Scholarship on post-2003 Iraqi literature has emphasized trauma, war, and displacement, often at the expense of sustained gender analysis (Masmoudi 58; Antoon 44). By centering gendered subjectivity in Daughter of the Tigris, this study expands critical discourse beyond national allegory and political testimony. The project contributes to feminist literary criticism by demonstrating that male-authored Arabic novels can articulate complex representations of female ethical agency without recourse to symbolic reduction. Engagement with Abu-Lughod’s feminist anthropology further challenges dominant Western feminist paradigms that frame Middle Eastern women through rescue narratives or universalist models of emancipation (Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Need Saving? 38). This intervention promotes culturally attentive feminist critique that respects local moral worlds while maintaining critical rigor. The study also holds theoretical significance through its interdisciplinary synthesis. Dialogue between Butler’s theory of performativity and Abu-Lughod’s anthropological ethics remains rare within Arabic literary scholarship. Butler’s emphasis on embodied normativity and ethical self-narration offers tools for interpretation of narrative voice and bodily practice, while Abu-Lughod’s work grounds these concepts within kinship and cultural specificity (Butler 21; Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds 9). This integration advances feminist theory by demonstrating its adaptability beyond Euro-American textual traditions. At a pedagogical level, the research provides a model for teaching Arabic literature through feminist frameworks without imposing external abstractions. By combining theoretical depth with close textual attention, the study contributes to ethical scholarship that treats gender, culture, and n