Psy. D., Antioch University, 2025, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

This dissertation presents a comprehensive analysis of the current research on scrupulosity, a subtype of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) characterized by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors related to religious and moral concerns. The dissertation identifies key similarities and differences from OCD, and directs focus to thematically related yet unsubstantiated theoretical work in psychology that helps elucidate the core features and etiological factors of scrupulosity as differentiated from other OCD subtypes. The study addresses the critical dearth of research on scrupulosity, aiming to fill significant gaps in the literature regarding its historical context, varied presentation and prevalence in different cultural contexts, and potentially effective treatment approaches to address better the needs of a significant number of people worldwide. Beginning with an exploration of historical conceptualizations from the 2nd through the early 21st centuries, the dissertation traces the recognition of scrupulosity and recommendations for treatment across various cultural traditions and major world religions including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, from both Protestant and Catholic sources, as well as non-religious belief systems. It highlights notable historical figures who exhibited scrupulous behaviors contextualizing them with a modern psychological lens. As the leading theologians of their faiths, they often ironically v advised its treatment from their own experience as the most influential theologians of each of their faiths. These historical writings still have wisdom to impart today. The history of scrupulosity is, in many ways, a history of religion across time and culture, as well as of the birth and first 150 years of psychology itself. Key schools of psychological thought are explored for relevance to developing contemporary evidence-based treatments. Due to few qualitative or quantitative studies on scrupulosity compared t (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

Scholars of Translation have recently started to turn their attention to literary traditions beyond Western traditions of translation, acknowledging the need for translation between the Arabic language and its cultures, and the languages and the cultures of the outside world. Arabic has a long history of translation, reaching back to the Golden Age of Arabic civilization, known in Europe as the dark ages. This study is an attempt to bring the Arabic translation tradition to the discussion around translation theory. It covers seven decades of literary translation activities from 1947 to 2016. The scope of this study encompasses the translations into English of works of Arabic literary fiction during three distinct periods: 1947–1967; 1968–1987; and 1988–2016. The first period marks the first noticeable attempts to translate modern Arabic literature; the second period witnesses the expansion of translation Arabic literature due to political unrest in the Middle East; and the third period marks a global recognition of Arabic literature with the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature to Naguib Mahfuz in 1988. This project entailed the creation of a comprehensive bibliography of translated works of Arabic fiction published from 1947 to 2016. This bibliography provides information not only about the translation flows of Arabic novels and short stories, but also about the authors of the original works and the translators of these works, as well as the date and place of publication. This project also entailed the compilation of comprehensive corpus of all of the paratexts written by translators that accompanied the published translations of works of Arabic fiction published from 1947 to 2016. The corpus underwent extensive thematic analysis facilitated by the electronic qualitative analysis tool NVivo. The study's quantitative findings reveal that translations increased in number over time, with nine translations published in the first period, 83 in (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2021, Honors

Culture and society in the ancient world were shaped by the mythological beliefs of individual civilizations. The Watchers tradition, an Ancient Near Eastern myth present in the Hebrew Bible as well as in non-canonical books such as The Book of the Watchers, contains some of the least understood elements within the mythology of the Jewish people. These sources reveal myths to be dynamic reflections of changing cultural values. Between the first references to the Watchers in Hebrew mythology and their elaboration during the Hellenistic period six centuries later, the Watchers tradition developed from a reference in passing in the Book of Genesis to an in-depth exploration of Good and Evil in The Book of the Watchers. This development warrants discussion, as do its cultural and historic contexts. If the transformation of the Watchers myth was influenced by Jewish experience of Hellenistic rule, that invites further reflection on how the idea of supernatural evil entered into Judaism and would influence the later idea of fallen angels in Western civilization.

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

Readers' reactions to and appreciation of literary works, whether in their original language or in translation, are shaped by paratextual elements. Although paratexts play a significant role in shaping the reception of translation, little research has been conducted to explore the paratextual elements' role and the message they convey when it comes to translated Arabic novels. This dissertation thus aims to fill a void in the knowledge of paratexts, namely, factual information of translated novels which addresses the questions: what, who, when, and where, as well as the paratexts that surround the target text, explicitly, front cover illustrations and titles. The dissertation created an up-to-date bibliography of Arabic novels translated into English published worldwide between 1988 and 2018 through consulting WorldCat and Goodreads. The study divides the collected materials into two main categories according to publication date: post-Nobel Prize phase (1988–August 2001) and post-9/11 phase (September 2001–2018). The bibliography includes a total of 277 translated Arabic novels, which allow establishing factual information regarding the translation flow of Arabic novels into English across three decades and the main actors involved in the process of translation: authors, translators, and publishers. The study also examines the presentation of Arabic novels that were published specifically in the United States through the means of paratexts, i.e., front covers and titles. The bibliographical analysis results show an upward trend in the average number of translated novels, reaching 12 novels per year in the post-9/11 phase compared to 4 novels per year during the post-Nobel Prize phase. The current study results contradict Khalifa and Elgindy's (2014) argument about the development of translation of Arabic literature into English, which suggests that after the 9/11 attack, the interest toward Arabic literature was expanded to the public. Although there is an increase (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Greek and Latin

My dissertation investigates how Syriac-speakers conceptualized their communal subjectivities within a Roman imperial context. I argue that Syriac literature from the Roman empire, and especially Syriac historiography and Syriac liturgical texts, provided Syriac-speakers with the discursive tools with which they could interpret recent history and formulate conceptions of the self within a Roman context. I argue that Syriac identity prior to the formation of the Syriac Orthodox Church was articulated through a dialectic with contemporary Roman imaginaries of ethnicity and citizenship. In doing so, I problematize scholarship that supposes `Syriacness' and `Romanness' were antithetical in the late Roman period. Instead, I contend that Syriac-speaking communities adopted, manipulated, and redefined discourses of Romanness in order to create their own Syriac-speaking Roman subjectivities.

PHD, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

Although the study of reception has not been ignored in the field of Translation Studies, the role of lay readers largely has been. Some of the reasons for this are practical; before the advent of the Internet, reader reaction could be gauged mostly through statistical analysis of books sales or library records. The Internet has made possible the collection of actual reviews by readers, which makes more nuanced, qualitative analysis of reader response feasible. The research possibilities represented by online reader reviews, however, have yet to be exploited in a systematic way. Hence, this research argues that it is time for the full integration of end-readers into reception studies of translated literature. This research aims to explore images and representations of the Arabs and their cultures transmitted to the West through translated Arabic literature. Previous studies have adopted positivist approaches, investigating how accurately the Arabs and their cultures were represented in the translations as well as what images are inserted in them. This research, informed by post-positivist approaches, explores not how the source culture and its images have been depicted and represented in translations, but how lay readers interpreted and constructed those images and representations after reading. To carry out the investigation, four case studies were selected for this corpus-based, corpus-driven study. The responses of readers in the form of online book reviews of original Arabic works and their translations were compiled for analysis using corpus tools. The analysis explored how each of these works was packaged and received in the source and target cultures.

PHD, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This dissertation examines the relationship that the Palestinian diaspora maintains with the motherland of Palestine. Specifically, it studies the factors contributing to the fostering of such a sense of affiliation among Palestinian diasporic communities despite the absence of a Palestinian political entity that could undertake such a process. This dissertation proposes that the Palestinian master-narrative plays a significant role in maintaining and enhancing the attachment and affiliation of Palestinian diasporic communities with their original homeland. The Palestinian master-narrative, it is contended, is one of the main vehicles through which Palestinian national identity is built within and beyond the geographical realm of historic Palestine. This research claims that Palestinian diasporic writing (including Palestinian-American writing) has been circulating the Palestinian national narrative, which plays a significant role in enhancing the connection between Palestinian diasporic communities and their original homeland and helping them build a national identity. In addition, the circulation of these national narratives establishes the Nakba as a traumatic event in the collective imagination of post-Nakba Palestinian generations, making them equally traumatized as those Palestinians who experienced these events firsthand. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on representations of two main Palestinian national narratives in Palestinian-American writing and their role in building Palestinian national identity. The first narrative is that of the right of return and it is traced in Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin (2006). The second one is the narrative of sumud and it is examined in Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home (2008). In addition, the relationship between memory and Palestinian identity-building via national narrative is explored in Shaw Dallal's Scattered Like Seeds (1998).

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

This study examines linguistic differences in a geographically divided village, Ahmad-Abad, in Lorestan, a province in Iran, that affect musical contour and tonality. Internal conflict in Iranian social politics was fundamental to the creation of alternate pronunciations of “water” between northern and southern regions of the village. This thesis focuses on the reasons for these alternate pronunciations and demonstrate how the differing versions affect the ethnic hymn and melody "Abangan" or "The Water's Birthday" used in a celebration ceremony that is held for the blessing of and as an appeal for water.

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)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

This study investigated how curriculum can develop students' ability to critically engage with cultural difference, specifically with regard to learning about Islam and Muslims. The significance of this study lies in its synthesis of both academic and practitioner perspectives on this subject. The study built upon several areas of scholarship: critical global education, critical multicultural curriculum, decolonial and decolonizing approaches (countering Eurocentrism), anti-oppressive education, and critical pedagogy (see “Defining Critical Global Curriculum” in Chapter 2). All these approaches were viewed through the lens of Islamophobia as I analyzed curricular practices for teaching critically about Islam and Muslims. The core finding was that teachers countered Islamophobia by pushing their students' boundaries, or their conceptual biases, with regard to Muslim identity, and their own cultural identities. They often did this in ways intended to disrupt conceptualizations of self/Other. Teachers pushed student boundaries of self/Other by countering Eurocentric bias, acknowledging current and past forms of imperialism and oppression, and asking students to reflect on themselves before judging the Other. For many of the teachers in my study, this meant including Palestinian, indigenous, feminist, and other critical perspectives in their curriculum. Teachers acknowledged several key challenges: complicity with Eurocentric narratives, speaking the truth about war and racism, students' internalized racism and Islamophobia, and dilemmas for teaching about women's rights without perpetuating stereotypes about Muslim-majority countries and communities.

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This dissertation is a postcolonial study of selected writings of the Palestinian intellectual, journalist, political activist, and author, Ghassan Kanafani. Using postcolonial theory to create a single framework for the study of selected writings of Kanafani, this dissertation will also contribute to the analysis of the postcolonial Palestinian novel. This study hopes to achieve these goals by investigating the ways in which Kanafani's literary works can serve as means to explore the importance that Palestinians attach to the history of their struggle for freedom and cultural preservation. It is within this postcolonial context that Men in the Sun (1963), All That's Left to You (1966), and Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories (1969) will be discussed in this dissertation. The novellas and short stories are prime examples of traumatic experiences that Palestinian refugees faced during Kanafani's lifetime. The writings reflect Kanafani's understanding of the permanent exile, fear, isolation, loneliness, and despair that he and many Palestinians experienced during major parts of the twentieth century as results of Zionist occupation of Palestine. Kanafani's realistic depictions of these harsh situations are key factors that make his works ideal for postcolonialist analysis.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, English

Within this dissertation, I pay exclusive attention to methodologies of cross-cultural communication in post–World War II Anglophone Arab literature. Hitherto critical accounts discussing cross-cultural communication in this kind of literary tradition focused special attention on the use of English to reach a wide audience and on the process of cultural representation. Most accounts examine methods of delivery as an expected consequence of more complex representations without devoting much space for theorizing cross-cultural communication. Much of post-1960 Anglophone Arab literary production in the diaspora addresses the problem of cross-cultural communication differently. As cultural translators, interpreters, and mediators, Anglophone Arab writers insist on reframing current misconceptions about themselves. Negative depictions manifested in representing a collective Arabic identity stand in contrast to the actual heterogeneous identities of Arabic-speaking individuals and their descendants. In addition to these superficial representations, dramatic events such the Arab-Israeli conflict (1948–present), the Six-Day War (1967), the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991), the Iraq War (2003–present), and 9/11 and the consequent War on Terror enlarged divisions between “East” and “West,” which resulted in conflating Arabic and Arab diasporic identities with global politics. In order to overcome this dilemma of conflation and association, Arab writers produced literary pieces that depict more complicated representations of themselves as individuals who exhibit cultural and political diversity. This self-appropriation is not only limited to producing more complicated and heterogeneous representations via Arab diasporic writing, but also extends to posing major challenges to approaches about expressing the Self. Nowhere are these challenges more keenly evident than in contemporary Anglophone Arab writers' literary production. My disserta (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2018, English

Tayeb Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North, published shortly after Sudanese independence from colonial rule, is in itself a practice in resistance. Salih subverts the European narrative, and instead replaces it with the experience of his protagonist MustafaSa'eed. Through this novel, Salih combats the British literary and social tradition of the"germ" of infection that is transmitted to the British body politic through the brown body of the formerly colonized subject. ! propose that Salih's novel demonstrates that for all of England's germaphobic and paranoid ideas directed toward the brown body, England's conquest of Sudan is the true source of evil and infection in the novel. Rather than perpetuating the myth of the colonizing mission as the benevolent enterprise that the British often uphold, Salih underscores that colonialism and the conquest of Sudan is the origin of the plague that both the postcolonial body and postcolonial society must struggle to come to terms with, even "post-independence." The motif of the "germ" is constantly repeated by the British in the text. However, Mustafa, appropriates this terminology, and in doing so, points to a source-hood for his actions as the first Sudanese to ever set foot in England-- that source-hood being the British empire and the colonial mission. This infection manifests itself on both the mental plane, through education and the monopolizing of culture, as well as the physical plane, through ideas of sexuality and miscegenation. Other postcolonial scholars tend to read Salih's novel as a letter to the empire, focusing entirely on Mustafa's actions in the post-colonial context. I, however, intend to look at the ways in which the disease of colonialism was intended to erase any possibility of the post-colonial, and the ways in which the novel itself grapples with the notion of anything surviving post contamination

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Media and Communication

As the fastest growing population in the world and in the U.S., Muslims increasingly draw the attention of many researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines. Biased perceptions of Islam and Muslims that are based on “oriental” views have been fueled by different wars and conflicts involving Islamic countries or nations in different parts of the world. Driven by biased ideologies, perceptions and attitudes, along with political and socioeconomic forces of a capitalist system in the U.S., mass media, and other anti-Islam institutions played a significant role in spreading and perpetuating Islamophobia. This dissertation addresses Islamophobia by reviewing its origins, definitions, and consequences, and investigates its dynamics through the theoretical frameworks of capitalism, hegemony, and agenda setting. By selecting certain topics to dominate daily news stories and talking points, major media outlets can significantly impact the public discourse and perceptions and prioritize these issues on people's minds. In response to the negative media coverage, many Islamic organizations were established to counter such misperceptions and empower the Muslim communities in the U.S. through various methods including the use of social media. This dissertation examines major Islamic organizations' used of social media to communicate their messages, respond to Islamophobic portrayals and actions, support Muslim communities, set the agenda, and connect with local communities and social institutions. A total of 420 social media posts over the course of three months by five major U.S.-based Islamic organizations were gathered and analyzed using quantitative content analysis method. The organizations' Facebook-page-likes networks and Twitter-mentions networks were drawn, analyzed, and graphed to supplement the findings of the main method. The results show that the Islamic organizations adopted different and complementary approaches to promote their values, support th (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This dissertation explores the representation of social hierarchy in the discourse of Saudi female novelists between 2004 and 2015. The last generation of Saudi women novelists has concentrated its fictional narrative discourse and themes on the suffering of women under the Saudi masculine culture. Their goal is to point out several aspects of social hierarchy that affect women in Saudi society. The forty-three female Saudi novelists chosen for this study published at least one novel between 2004 and 2015, and each novel portrays at least one aspect of social hierarchy. I argue that the themes that reflect the hierarchies of tribe, descent, region, skin color, class, occupation, sect, gender and language have become dominant in Saudi female novelistic discourse. Throughout these themes, Saudi female novelists depict how the Saudi woman suffers from masculine domination in her family, community, society, and culture. These authors employ fictional narrative discourse to resist social powers that control women's lives in Saudi Arabia and to achieve certain feminist goals. Their writings bring to light important issues that people are unable to discuss publicly in Saudi society. I analyze all of these novels from the perspective of feminist theory in order to, first, describe how these writers challenge their conservative society and culture and, second, highlight the condition of women under conservatism. The corpus of studies of Saudi women novelists written in English is small, and this study expands that corpus by examining how Saudi women novelists use their novels to critique Saudi culture from within and to project their voices to people who live within and outside of Saudi Arabia.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2017, Elementary Education

Purpose: This research aims to explore the lived experience of Saudi “third culture kids” (TCKs) and how those children, as well as their parents and teachers, describe their experiences as children growing up between different cultures. Method: This research applies a phenomenological multiple case studies to a sample of three children aged (7-10) years, three parents, and three homeroom teachers. Data is collected from the participants as follows: questionnaire and open-ended one-on-one interviews with parents, a photo-elicitation along with open-ended interview with children, and written interview with teachers. Having multiple perspectives is intended to manifest the essence of the experience of acculturation of Saudi third culture kids and to illustrate how these children identify themselves and make meaning of their experience and the role of their parents and teachers in cultural adaptation. Results: The findings showed that Saudi TCKs have positive cultural adaptation during their lived experience, developing their identities as Saudis Muslims and Arab with developing bicultural perspective. Roles of Saudi parents and American teachers as they enhance cultural adaptation are discussed. Recommendations and implications of the research are provided. Keywords: Third culture kids, TCK, cross-cultural kids, acculturation, Saudis in the U.S, Saudi children, Muslims, Arabs, childhood, cultural identity, adaptation.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2015, Leadership and Change

This study addresses the research question “How Do I Inspire Personal and Social Change Through My Theater Practice?” I implement the theory and practice of H.E.A.T., a fusion theater system, combining use of theater arts as healing practice, educational asset, activist tool, and an art form. I research different ways that theater can affect change, focusing specifically on the use of history in performance. I dramatically interpret a period of history where performance and poetry contributed to change. I utilize qualitative methods including performance ethnography, auto ethnography, arts-based research, and historical research. I describe the fieldwork in conflict zones in the Middle East, which led to the scripting of a full-length play, and the presentation of the play, which included discussion groups and audience participation through post-show events. The dissertation is a bricolage, combining scholarly chapters, performative writing, and scripted theater. The work explores ways of employing theater as a change agent by using history as an inspiration. In the city of Cordoba, Spain, in the 10th and 11th century Muslims and Jews lived in a state of relative peace. Looking at medieval Cordoba I explore the Judeo-Arabic poetry of the time, asking: Can what happened in Cordoba be a model for performance and peacebuilding? Based on historical research, the Judeo-Arabic poetry of ancient Al-Andalusia, and the theory of performative peacebuilding, the dramatically scripted section of the dissertation will take place in two realms: Present-day conflict zones in the Middle East; and medieval Cordoba where two ancient characters convey a story of coexistence through poetic expression. In three decades of working as a theater artist, I have come to believe that my work must be dedicated to facilitating change. The sacred and ancient art of theater needs to be meaningful to 21st-century life so that we can use it to awaken, heal, educate and repair the world. This disser (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

This paper examines the use of young adult literature of and about the Middle East in the secondary English Language Arts classroom as a means to dispel stereotypes about the region and welcome multicultural themes and topics into literary discussion. The work is made up of five chapters, each of which address a different piece of literature of five sub-genres: fiction, memoir, poetry, short story, and graphic novel. The books of study are broken down and analyzed in each chapter, exploring potential strategies for studying the books, such as symbol analysis, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), and psychoanalytical theory, as well as offering potential teaching strategies for educators to use in the 7-12 classroom. The work is rounded out with 6 appendices made up of ready-to-use lesson plans, project ideas, and models paired with each of the five novels, provided for language arts teachers to utilize in their own classrooms when teaching about the Middle East and its literature.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2002, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The primary function of this thesis is to test the argument that semantic distortions--either intentional or unintentional--naturally occur in all translations irrespective of the field. The source of these distortions can be traced to the ideology propagated in the translator's home society. Presented on the following pages is evidence supporting the aforementioned argument procured by conducting a comparative analysis of Arabic/English source texts and target texts in three specific fields of translation: political, military, and religious. The justification for conducting research in these fields lies in what I propose to be an inherent danger in producing translations that intentionally distort historical facts, or alter the intent of the original author in the name of individual or group interests. It is also my intention to supply translators with precise information concerning the elements that act as catalysts in distorting source text meaning, insofar as their elucidation may lead to the ability to conduct translations of higher fidelity.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Comparative Studies

In my dissertation, “Nutshells and Infinite Space: Totality and Global Culture,” I reformulate the Marxist concept of totality in response to the economic and cultural transformations brought about by globalization. The dissertation is divided into three parts. In the first part, I trace the lineage of Marxist thinking about totality through the writing of Marx, Lukacs, Adorno, and Jameson. Through addressing critiques of totality, I develop a conception of immanent totality that reconciles Hegelian Marxist thinking on totality with the critiques of the concept elaborated by Spinozist Marxism, Lyotard, and others. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that attempts to theorize globalization from the late 1980s until the early 2000s (in the work of Ronald Robertson, Arjun Appadurai, Leslie Sklair, Kenichi Ohmae, Ulrich Beck and others) constitute an unconscious search for a subject of history, or for a universal agent that can exert control over globalization. This unconscious search is conducted in globalization theory's attempt to relate systematic changes brought about by globalization to the subjective experience conditioned by such changes. I argue that in a first moment, globalization theories attempt to construct new discursive contradictions in order to describe their new phenomena. In a second moment, these contradictions tend to collapse, marking the failure of the search for a subject of history. I conclude by arguing that the nation-state remains a suppressed object of desire for globalization theory, one that marks the possibility of future collective projects. In the final part of my dissertation, I present a typology of World Literature theories. I argue that early World Literature theories include an unintended rejection of totalizing aesthetics. In contrast, I argue, more contemporary discussions of World Literature look for ways in which totalizing aesthetics are reinvented to take into account cultural transformations that result from pro (open full item for complete abstract)