Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, English

The Narrative Space of Childhood traces the representations of childhood in 21st century Anglophone Arab literature in the diaspora. Concerned with the contemporary moment, this study focuses exclusively on Anglophone Arab coming-of-age narratives published post 2000 including Rabih Alameddine's The Hakawati, Alia Yunis's The Night Counter, Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men, Nathalie Abi-Ezzi's A Girl Made of Dust, Alicia Erian's Towelhead, and Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home. Anglophone Arab writers frequently place children at the center of their literary production, most notably in the midst of conflict-ridden zones besieged by threats of violence, daily terror, and political unrest. Child narrators in Anglophone Arab literature function as reluctant witnesses, innocent bystanders, and unwitting collaborators. In many cases, they become active participants, exercising agency, sometimes finding themselves culpable in the violence. Children frequently offer testimonials, inscribe the battlefield as a playground enacting multiple states of play, become collateral damage dispossessed of home and family, and serve as a repository for collective memory in terms of families, communities, cultures, and generations. Children's perspectives are limited in understanding the confluence of events unfolding within a conflict zone. Their naivety, however, is relatively short-lived. The child's vision provides a piercing, unflinching depiction of history from a vantage point that explodes conventional sentiment in favor of a more penetrating, debilitating, and raw vision of crisis. The figure of the child in 21st century Anglophone Arab diasporic literature interrogates, challenges, and resists facile tropes of sentimentality, nostalgia, and authenticity. Most evident in these works is the child's capacity to instruct, rehabilitate, and complicate adults' beliefs about gender, sexuality, masculinity, femininity, memory, trauma, and play. The post 9/11 Era as it relates to yo (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2017, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The historiography surrounding the role of the United States in relation to the creation of Israel is wide-ranging and covers a variety of perspectives. The voices of Arab Americans, however, are largely absent, due in part to a belief that the Arab American population was too small, fragmented, and disinterested in politics to have tried to influence American politics. This dissertation challenges that idea by examining the rhetoric, imagery, and messages of Arab American groups and their supporters in comparison with those of Zionist organizations and their proponents, with a specific focus on the efforts of the Institute of Arab American Affairs. By doing so, this work shows that members of the Institute viewed the United States as a reference culture and sought to convince Americans that the Arabs of Palestine were the best reflection of American identity and ideals. This work is thematically organized, examining how the Institute engaged with issues such as race and religion, democracy and justice, national security, and modernization to challenge previously held stereotypes regarding both Arabs and Jews and their respective claims to the Holy Land. Thus, this work shows that not only were Arab Americans politically active prior to the June War of 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbors, they had a sophisticated understanding of what issues and ideas were important to a (white, Christian) American audience and sought to win that audience's support in order to influence policy makers, while combating Zionists' use of similar arguments to gain American support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The failure of the Institute and other Arab organizations during this time period to secure U.S. recognition of an Arab state in Palestine was not, therefore, due to inaction or indifference by the Arab American community, but rather to its inability to break through the dominant frames promoted by Zionists and their supporters that a Jewish state i (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Social Work

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity changes experienced by Arab Muslims residing in Columbus, Ohio, during the Spring of 2011 based on the Arab Muslims' experiences with terrorism-labeling and Arab Muslims' perceptions of terrorism-labeling factors. This study also intended to discover the predictive relationship between the characteristics of participants and changes in their identity. The study was guided by Labeling and Social Identity theories. These theories were also utilized in developing a tenable theoretical Terrorism-Labeling Influence model (TLI) that explained the complex of impact terrorism-labeling on well-being. Two hundred twenty three Arab Muslims were recruited through the largest three Islamic organizations in Columbus, Ohio. Non-probability data collection method (convenience sampling) was utilized. The participants responded to a questionnaire developed by the researcher. The instruments of this study included the Arab Muslims' Experiences with Terrorism-Labeling, Arab Muslims' Perceptions of Terrorism-Labeling, Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, Brief Arab Religious Coping Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Descriptive and correlation statistics were used to explore the associations between demographic variables and changes in Arab Muslims' ethnic and religious identities. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to answer the research questions. The findings of this study did not support the research hypotheses indicating that there was no correlation between the independent variables, Arab Muslims' experiences with terrorism-labeling (AMETL) and Arab Muslims' perceptions of terrorism-labeling (AMPTL) and Arab Muslims ethnic and religious identities. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2011, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies

Arab Muslim women have been portrayed by the West in general and Western Feminism in particular as oppressed, weak, submissive, and passive. A few critics, Nawar al-Hassan Golley, is an example, clarify that Arab Muslim women are not weak and passive as they are seen by the Western Feminism viewed through the lens of their own culture and historical background. Using Transnational Feminist theory, my study examines four autobiographies: Harem Years By Huda Sha'arawi, A Mountainous Journey a Poet's Autobiography by Fadwa Tuqan, A Daughter of Isis by Nawal El Saadawi, and Dreams of Trespass, Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi. This study promises to add to the extant literature that examine Arab Muslim women's status by viewing Arab women's autobiographies as real life stories to introduce examples of Arab Muslim women figures who have effected positive and significant changes for themselves and their societies. Moreover, this study seeks to demonstrate, through the study of select Arab Muslim women's autobiographies, that Arab Muslim women are educated, have feminist consciousnesses, and national figures with their own clear reading of their own religion and culture, more telling than that of the reading of outsiders.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of the Mediterranean ambiance and climate in Columbus, Ohio and in some sense the United States at large, through the ways Arab Americans market their cuisines and present themselves to the community. Little scholarship is available on Arab American cuisine in the States. The aim is to find out if Arab American owned restaurants and grocery stores are selling an experience for their clientele, if the Mediterranean label has become a reinvention of their homeland and/or a reconstructed experience of the Arab American, and if their various ways of self-portrayal has undergone a transformation within the larger context of Arab American identity. I use an ethnographic approach to interview Arab American food franchise owners to learn more about concepts such as identity, agency, homebuilding, and orientalism. Arab Americans are reframing the meaning of the Mediterranean through their franchise spaces in the context of their identity and agency as they engage their clientele.

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

In response to the beginning of the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, Algeria, Libya, Syria, South Yemen, and the PLO formed the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front at Tripoli in December 1977. This group sought to oppose the peace process—they were essentially a radical rejectionist spoiler movement. Scholars have paid little attention to the group as a whole, and certainly haven't examined its relations with the United States. On the one hand, this is unsurprising, given that the Front failed to attain its initial objectives. On the other hand, the countries comprising the Front each played a role in the strategic shift away from the Arab-Israeli conflict and toward the Persian Gulf region, making this absence rather confusing. This thesis examines American relations with the Front, a subject that has hitherto received no serious, focused scholarly treatment. I present several arguments throughout this study. First, the United States did not engage with the Front as such, but instead lumped all the “radicals” and “rejectionists” together. This was mostly due to Egyptian President Sadat's dismissive attitude toward the rejectionists. Second, the United States largely refrained from engaging bilaterally with the Front's members, and when it did, it was often in ways divorced from the peace process. Relatedly, this general lack of engagement resulted in strained relations between the United States and the rejectionists. This is clearest in the cases of Libya and—especially—Syria, both of which the Reagan administration came into significant conflict. Above all, this study shows that the peace process and the coming of the Second Cold War were intimately connected. Most accounts of Carter's Middle East policy split it between Carter the Peacemaker from 1977 through the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in March 1979, and Carter the Cold Warrior from mid-1979 through 1981, and never the twain shall meet. I show how these were intimately connected, a (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Comparative Studies

My project, Modernity, Multiculturalism, and Racialization in Transnational America: Autobiography and Fiction by Immigrant Muslim Women Before and After 9/11, interrogates the enduring notion of America as the promised land of freedom and social mobility in the narratives of Muslim immigrant women. Informed by the critical theories of minority discourse, U.S. borders studies, and postcolonial scholarship, I argue that autobiography and fiction by Muslim American women writers indicate an ideological flexibility, demonstrating a spectrum of discursive negotiations and stances that strategically claim secular, religious, modern, feminist, capitalist, transnational, and multiracial identities that altogether challenge the hegemonic and binary configurations of the figure of “the Muslim” and reformulate the terms of citizenship and belonging in the U.S. I read these strategies in three different writings: Selma Ekrem's autobiography Unveiled: The Autobiography of a Turkish Girl (1930), Mohja Kahf's novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006), and Leila Halaby's novel Once in A Promised Land (2007). Collectively, these texts articulate and address anxieties about the presumed “incommensurability” of Muslim/Middle Eastern identity with the imaginary ideal of normative Anglo-American modern society, and they offer a unique ethnic, religious, and cross-racial perspective that challenges dominant U.S. conceptions of the minority difference and exclusion. My project contributes to the theorizing of transnational minority literature in a context that goes beyond the simplistic framework of minor to major anti-hegemonic discourse. While I discuss these texts as counternarratives to hegemonic articulations of citizenship and exclusionary discourses of American identity, I also focus on minor-to-minor sensibilities, paying attention to the ways in which literature offers a space for articulations of cross-ethnic alliances, solidarities, and tensions amongst immigrants and other (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2018, College of Sciences and Health Professions

While depression is a cross-cultural phenomenon, much of the literature that examines risk factors and mechanisms for its occurrence is examined from a Western perspective. As cultural background and level of acculturation to the host culture is known to shape the expression of depressive disorders, as well as their risk factors, this study examined whether cultural factors influence the relationship between two cognitive emotion regulation processes and depression symptoms. Specifically, this study examined whether the relationship between internal, stable, and global causal attributions for negative events (negative attributional style) and depression is mediated by one's tendency to reframe the meaning of event to alter one's emotional experience (reappraisal), and whether the effects of negative attributional styles vary as a function of cultural background and level of acculturation. Therefore, the relationships between negative attributional style, reappraisal, and depression may differ between individualistic US culture, and individuals hailing from a collectivistic Arab heritage. Participants (N = 86) completed measures of Arab cultural identity, negative attributional style, reappraisal, and depression symptoms. Mediation and mediated-moderated analyses were used to examine these relationships. While results showed that the effects of negative attributional style on depression was mediated by reappraisal, the direction of the effect was in the opposite direction than hypothesized: negative attributional styles predicted less reappraisal. Cultural background and acculturation levels were unrelated to variables of interest and did not moderate model effects. Findings provide clarification on how emotion regulation efforts may unfold after an initial attribution is made.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1990, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This dissertation studies the role that marriage plays in contemporary Jordanian youths' collective action and social imaginaries. I argue that marriage should be studied as part of politics as it is linked to popular perceptions regarding the state's function (or dysfunction) in Jordan. In addition, I argue that marriage needs to be considered as a potential site for youths' socio-political agency, as marriage involves not only practical considerations about money and employment but also strategies, practices, and efforts to realize their imagination of what state-society relationship should be (social imaginaries). I study marriage through a variety of ethnographic and expressive cultural forms (through field interviews, popular literature, music, cartoons, graffiti, and films) in order to better understand what Ammani youth have to say about marriage and society. Popular culture appeals to young people in Amman because it often resembles their own lived experiences and depicts how individuals can overcome hardship. Field experiences and conversations reveal how marriage concerns are linked to national and everyday politics. The strategies youths actively pursue—from individual and familial networking to saving cooperatives and employment abroad—can be seen as expressions of agency in pursuit of their social imaginaries. Their search for educated, pious, and employed partner with similar views about marriage, society, and piety further emphasizes the link between the public and the private sphere, and the personal and the political. Despite young people's efforts to pursue individual and societal goals, generational fears allude to older generations pushing back against societal change. Since decisions and actions regarding marriage are tightly connected to political, economic, and social institutions, marriage serves as a lens to understand popular debates and sentiments among Ammani youths. Thus, it offers insights into why Jordan has avoided (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2015, Psychology

Abstract The present study investigated the relationship among explicit biases against Arabs/Arab Americans, diagnosis, prognosis, and perceived cultural competence. Individuals of Arab descent are at heightened risk for prejudice and discrimination due to events such as those that occurred on September 11, 2001 (Moradi & Hasan, 2004; The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, 2009). The participants for this study included 161 advanced psychology graduate students and predoctoral interns. For participants who were of the traditional age (25-34 years old) for advanced graduate psychology training, a small negative relationship was found between perceived cultural competence and less explicit biases towards Arab individuals in the predicted direction. This negative relationship between perceived cultural competence and explicit biases towards Arabs was also found within the ethnic minority participants. Higher perceived cultural competence predicted a lower severity of diagnosis of a hypothetical Arab client, but only for the 25-34 years old participants. Higher levels of explicit biases against Arabs predicted a better prognosis of a hypothetical Arab client, but only for the male participants. This relationship had a small effect size and it was not in the predicted negative direction. These results contribute to the current literature, as this topic has previously been unexamined in the literature. These findings may offer implications for diversity education for graduate programs and internships.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Journalism (Communication)

This study builds on research that has documented the persistence of negative stereotypes of Arabs and the Arab world in the U.S. media during more than a century. The specific focus is Time magazine's portrayal of Arabs and their societies between 2001 and 2011, a period that includes the September 11, 2001, attacks; the ensuing U.S.-led "war on terror" and the mass "Arab Spring" uprisings that spread across the Arab world beginning in late 2010. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study explores whether and to what extent Time's coverage employs what Said (1978) called Orientalism, a powerful binary between the West and the Orient characterized by a consistent portrayal of the West as superior--rational, ordered, cultured--and the Orient as its opposite--irrational, chaotic, depraved. A quantitative content analysis of 271 Time feature stories and photographs revealed that Time's coverage focused predominately on conflict, violence, and dysfunction. Nations that received the most frequent coverage were those where the United States was involved militarily, such as Iraq, as well as those that receive the most U.S. foreign aid or are strategically important to U.S. interests. These findings coalesce with the study's qualitative portion, a critical discourse analysis of approximately 20 percent of the data set that employs metaphor and framing theory. This thread of the study reveals an overarching Orientalist binary where Arabs are portrayed either as "atavistic"; or "modern." As "atavistic," they are backward and irrationally violent, possessing corrupt and failed leaders and terrified, preyed-upon women; as "modern," they strive to look, dress, act, and think like Westerners. Arab moderns oftentimes apologize for their societies'; atavistic ways. Media scholars have noted an apparent shift in coverage of Arabs after the events of September 11, with more favorable or complex portrayals found in journalism, television, and film. However, this study revealed no such (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2009, History

This thesis will tell the story of the Syrian-Lebanese immigrants and their children who lived in Toledo from 1881 until the 1960s. Through oral interviews, local newspaper articles, church and mosque records, and historical works on immigration and ethnicity in the United States, this thesis will chronicle their immigration to Toledo, their experiences with Americanization, and their endeavor to maintain their ethnic identity through community building and home-making efforts, as they made the United States their permanent home. This analysis will be accomplished by examining eleven steps that the Syrian-Lebanese people took to make the United States their permanent home. These steps were either assimilative, influenced by an external force, or a home making and community building effort, caused internally by the community to recreate a Syrian village-like atmosphere to make their stay in America pleasant. In eight decades, the community grew from a small Christian colony, to a large, well-respected, religiously diverse community. They successfully established families, business, and religious and cultural associations to preserve their ethnic identity, while actively participating in Americanization efforts that ensured their economic and social success. While this work only encompasses a brief period of the community's existence, it is a start, which must be expanded upon by future scholars.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Social Work

Despite growing evidence that immigrant women are at risk of becoming victims of domestic violence, there has been little effort until recently to address intimate partner violence in the increasing immigrant populations in the United States. Evidence in the literature indicates that the severity as well as prevalence of intimate partner violence may be higher among immigrant groups. Suffering coupled with partner violence is additionally associated with problems related to immigration and acculturation. Yet, previous studies on intimate partner violence have rarely regarded the immigration status of the victim or the specific cultural and religious background of the immigrants. The purpose of this study was to design a valid and reliable instrument, Likert-type scale that measures Arab-Muslim women's perception of marital violence. The scale was intended to investigate how Arab-Muslim women define intimate partner violence, help-seeking sources women might ask for help in case of intimate partner violence occurring, and barriers they might perceive in seeking outside help. The study examined 224 Arab-Muslim women's definition of marital violence, help-seeking sources preferences they might consult in case of marital violence, and barriers they might perceive in seeking outside help. The results indicated the length of stay Arab-Muslim women been in the United States and the amount of education they have received influence their perception of marital violence and their help-seeking preferences.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2009, History (Arts and Sciences)

Following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the United States seemed poised to reconsider its position as a staunch ally to Israel. The Nixon administration saw the conflict as an opportunity to reinvigorate diplomacy in the Middle East and to tighten relations with the Arab states; the soaring oil prices raised the apparent costs of U.S. wartime support for Israel and threatened the nearly unopposed lobbying position of Israel‚s domestic supporters; and Congress, one of Israel‚s most reliable allies, was in a state of flux, making continued support for Israel uncertain. With forces seemingly aligned against the relationship with Israel, it is remarkable that the war actually served to strengthen the U.S-Israel relationship. Historians, enamored with Henry Kissinger‚s diplomacy, have missed the central role Congress played from 1973 to 1976 in keeping the U.S. bond with Israel strong.

MS, Kent State University, 2011, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Health Sciences

This descriptive study was conducted to provide a description of dietary intake of Arab international college students along with dietary changes associated with relocation in Northeast Ohio in addition to evaluating the overall differences in food intake based on gender and marital status. A self administrated Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) was completed by 95 Arab international college students. The respondents reported noticeable changes in their food preferences and consumption of both traditional and westernized foods. The results revealed shift toward westernized and local foods along with a general unbalanced consumption from food groups for the majority of participants. However, the results showed few differences based on gender and marital status. Traditional food consumption decreased less than or equal to (p 0.05) whereas westernized food consumption increased, less than or equal to (p 0.05). Overall, the results suggested newly arriving Arab international college students might benefit from nutrition education relative to westernized food intake.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2007, Communication Studies

This research focused on individuals of Arab ancestry residing in the U.S. and examined various factors that might influence their cultural identity. The research examined the effects of religion, nationality, and gender on participants' maintenance of Arab cultural identity, attitude toward the original and host cultures, in- and out-group socialization, and perceived discrimination. It also examined the effects of religion, nationality (Arab country of origin), gender, immigration generation, perceived discrimination, and sojourner status on acculturation mode. It also looked at the effect of religion and national origin on ethnogamy and self-identification. Finally, the research examined the relationship of self-identification, gender, in- and out-group socializing, and perceptions of the importance of events happening in Arab countries in the Middle East. Using snowball sampling, I recruited 304 participants. Data were collected from participants living in 13 states with origins from 10 Arab countries. The participants were provided with self-administered questionnaires with closed-ended questions. This study found that the participants' Arab country of origin affected single participants' ethnogamy; it also affected on in-group socializing and attitude toward the host culture. In addition, nationality and religion had significant effects on participants' attitude toward Arab country of origin and perceived discrimination by the host culture. Religion and American city of residence had an impact on self-identification. The results also showed that participants' American city of residence had significant effects on self-identifications and the perceived importance of events happening in Arab countries in the Middle East. In addition, immigration generation and sojourner status affected acculturation modes. Gender did not have any significant effects. The results of this study showed among other things that the major acculturation modes of Arab Americans in this s (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2013, Political Science

This thesis analyzes the political agency of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia's Ennahda through a side-by-side comparison of each organization's political development. It begins with a review of the historical development of each group in order to examine why each group has developed so differently. The second chapter examines the role of each group in the context of the Arab Spring and how each group did in the post Arab Spring elections. The final chapter investigates how Ennahda and the Brotherhood have governed since their ascendance to power while analyzing how each group's moderation has influenced their political agency.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Psychology

The embrace of Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (MENA) Americans in the U.S. has oscillated between passive acceptance and outright disdain. Although this community is classified as White in the U.S. Census, their broader position in society is often one of a marginalized group. Thus, the present study aimed to examine how Arab/MENA caregivers discuss race and ethnicity with their adolescents, pass on cultural values, and prepare them for incidents involving biases and discrimination, processes known as ethnic-racial socialization (ERS). Using an open-ended qualitative approach, we explored (a) the content of Arab/MENA caregivers' ERS messages and the methods through which they convey these messages, (b) experiences of discrimination, and (c) how they cope with and discuss experiences of discrimination. We recruited 16 participants (n = 8 caregivers of adolescents, and 8 adolescents) who completed one-hour semi-structured interviews via secure video platforms. Based on thematic analysis, we identified 28 themes across four domains: 1) ERS messages content, 2) methods, 3) experiences of discrimination, and 4) coping. Findings highlight the role of cultural and religious socialization as closely intertwined, racialized experiences ranging from ignorance to physical assaults, and use of strategies such as pride in one's identity and forgiveness to cope.