Abstract
This paper explores how Arab-American poets like Hedy Habra and Fadhil Azzawi use ekphrasis as a liminal space and paratextual threshold (Genette, 1997) to reimagine diasporic identity, anchoring ancestral memory within oceanic journeys of cultural hybridity. Drawing on Huda Fakhreddine’s translational tarab (2023) and Hamid Dabashi’s “third space” (2012), I argue that ekphrastic poetry transforms classical Arabic motifs—such as the atlal (ruins) and wasf (vivid description)—into dynamic “vestibules of memory.” These vestibules bind fragmented histories and geographies, resisting Eurocentric erasure while fostering a syncretic, multicultural ethos. Focusing on Habra’s The Abandoned Stone House in Damascus and Azzawi’s In Every Well A Joseph Is Weeping , I demonstrate how their works reorient the atlal tradition from elegiac lament to sites of insurgent rebirth. Habra’s crumbling Damascene house becomes a paratextual threshold where “crumbling walls” and “empty windows” mediate between loss and hope, echoing T.S. Eliot’s “shored fragments” while asserting Arab resilience. Similarly, Azzawi’s reanimation of Mesopotamian artifacts as “stone tongues” speaking in “Akkadian, Arabic, and refugee dialects” enacts a rhizomatic (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) reclamation of heritage. By framing ekphrasis as a decolonial praxis, this paper bridges oceanic metaphors of connectivity with the Arab diaspora’s cultural navigation. The “ocean” symbolizes both the fluidity of diasporic identity and the violent undercurrents of displacement, paralleled in Habra’s The Great Wave, where Hokusai’s tsunami becomes a metaphor for systemic challenges faced by Arab-Americans. Ultimately, these poets craft translational liminality—a space where ancestral heirlooms are not static relics but living currents in the multicultural humanities.
Presenters
Talaat F. MohamedAssistant Professor, Department of English, College of Arts, Jouf University, Al Jawf, Saudi Arabia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Oceanic Journeys: Multicultural Approaches in the Humanities
KEYWORDS
Ekphrasis, Paratextuality, Diaspora, Decolonialization, Liminality, Multiculturalism
