1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910495875903321

Autore

Cooke Miriam

Titolo

Women and the war story / / Miriam Cooke

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [1996]

©1996

ISBN

0-520-91809-6

0-585-08138-7

Edizione

[Reprint 2019]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (384 p.) : 32 illustrations

Disciplina

892/.73609358

Soggetti

War stories - History and criticism - 20th century - Arab countries

War in literature - History and criticism

Women and war - History and criticism - Women authors

Arabic fiction

Women and literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Subvert the Dominant Paradigm -- 2. Culture Degree Zero -- 3. Silence Is the Real Crime -- 4. Talking Democracy -- 5. Flames of Fire in Qadisiya -- 6. Reimagining Lebanon -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Cited Works -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In a book that radically and fundamentally revises the way we think about war, Miriam Cooke charts the emerging tradition of women's contributions to what she calls the "War Story," a genre formerly reserved for men. Concentrating on the contemporary literature of the Arab world, Cooke looks at how alternatives to the master narrative challenge the authority of experience and the permission to write. She shows how women who write themselves and their experiences into the War Story undo the masculine contract with violence, sexuality, and glory. There is no single War Story, Cooke concludes; the standard narrative--and with it the way we think about and conduct war--can be changed.    As the traditional time, space, organization, and representation of war have shifted, so have ways of describing it. As drug wars, civil wars, gang wars, and ideological wars have moved into



neighborhoods and homes, the line between combat zones and safe zones has blurred. Cooke shows how women's stories contest the acceptance of a dyadically structured world and break down the easy oppositions--home vs. front, civilian vs. combatant, war vs. peace, victory vs. defeat--that have framed, and ultimately promoted, war.