Search published articles


Showing 2 results for Diaspora Literature


Volume 7, Issue 30 (12-2019)
Abstract

Folk narratives play an influential role in shaping the identity of the female subject in society, so that the cultural values ​​of the community, largely defined by the prevailing cultural discourse, are reflected through what Foucault calls the "regime of truth". This, in turn, defines the teachings of system of truth for the community through the folk narratives. This paper aims to, first, introduce two folk narratives of the Khorasan region called The Stone Woman and Zohreh: The Dumb Girl in a novel by Yasmin Crowther named The Saffron Kitchen. These two folk tales are written in English for the readers and represent the image of female subject echoed in Iranian folk narratives. This representation also echoes the dominant discourse, and patriarchal cultural hegemony in folk narratives. This investigation, then, examines how the social reflection of the creation of women identity can influence the identity of the female subject. Contemporary female writers have also put emphasize on challenging this hegemony and have constructed a new identity by generating a transnational cultural space. This study explores a novel of the Iranian diasporic literature, in which folk literature is reflected as a prelude to reflecting cultural hegemony, attempting to recall the role of folk literature in reflecting how traditional identity was formed and put forth the cultural "liminal space" for constructing a new female identity. The findings show that the female subject can be independently shaped, regardless of the supremacy of the cultural hegemony, and have a voice to be heard.

Mehdi Saeedi,
Volume 13, Issue 49 (12-2020)
Abstract

In the last few decades, the events and developments in both Iranian society and the world have led to the formation of women’s fiction writing in diaspora. In these stories, the protagonists are mostly women and, in contrary to traditional structures, women are not defined in relation to men, rather, following a deconstructive method, women’s views are considered as core views and the stories are narrated through their viewpoints to the world and also to the men. The current paper has indicated that these writers had maintained a relation between introducing women’s world to their readers and preserving the aesthetics in their stories. Regarding themes, some have incorporated feminine narratives to represent political issues, while others focused on identity issues and portrayed women as knowing subjects. Therefore, first person narrator is mostly adopted in these stories, enabling them to focus on the protagonist’s inner thoughts. In other words, it could be said that the writer is embodied in the first person narrator, the protagonist. Other themes include stories about sexual matters and narratives on everyday lives. The last category is mostly considered as pop literature and, though lacking a strong narrative structure, has attracted a significant readership


Page 1 from 1