Ontological and metaphysical issues are rarely associated with theatre because theatre emphasizes performance while questions of Being have been addressed primarily by philosophical inquiry. But philosophy and literature have traditionally intersected, because the meaning of exi…
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This is a study of the 10th/11th century Syrian poet Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri It answers many questions about his life and works which were still being raised, and highlights problems which have been left unattended not withstanding the impressive library that scholars from a var…
1963 marked the publication of a new edition by Roger Pack of Artemidorus' Onirocritica. The most recent edition had been that of Rudolph Hercher, produced almost a century earlier. Nevertheless, as no new witnesses had been discovered since then, Pack felt constrained in his pr…
In April 1960 the British daily The Manchester Guardian had accused Israel's prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, of “plunging the new nation into Levantinism.” Ben-Gurion himself promised his supporters during an election rally that he would “prevent the Levantinization of Israel!…
One of the perennial problems within the study of biblical Hebrew syntax is the meaning and function of the various types of clauses represented in narrative prose. How stories are shaped using only the five basic verbal clause types--QATAL, YIQTOL, WeQATAL, WeYIQTOL and WAYYIQT…
Biblical scholarship has reached a consensus with respect to the presence of a divine assembly of gods in Israel's faith. Prior to the sixth century B.C.E., Israelite religion underwent an evolution from an initial polytheism to a firm monolatry, where the other gods of the divi…
The tell of Ras Shamra on the Mediterranean coast of Syria has yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets which shed light on the scribal traditions of ancient Ugarit, a city-state which flourished during the latter part of the Late Bronze Age. This dissertation treats one aspect of…
The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that through his book. Awlad haratina, Najib Mahfuz is criticizing the role of traditional religion in his society in order to find a new god and a new faith. He is particularly concerned with the silence of God in view of human suffe…
The closely related theories of democracy and democratic transitions provide a general framework for studying the Palestinian case of nation-state building and transition to democracy. By developing a theoretical framework from these theories, and testing the generated hypothese…
David said, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; and his word was on my tongue” (2 Sam. 23:2). This speaking “through” the authors of Scripture, utilizing their personalities, educational levels, and individual idiosyncrasies of thought and expression, is possibly no better…
This dissertation is the first complete study of the novel Sipur pashut (A Simple Story) (1935) by the Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887-1970). The premise of this study is that the structure of Agnon's novel imitates the pattern of the "classic love novel" in modern Europe…
This dissertation is a study of the rhetorical interaction between Hebrew literature, Hebrew literary criticism, and Zionist political writings. Focusing on key terms of Zionist discourses, the dissertation explores formal contradictions within the Zionist subject through a clos…
Positive responses to the works of T. S. Eliot in the literary community in Israel follow a chronological arc beginning in the 1930s, culminating in the 1950s and '60s, and declining in subsequent decades. At the high point of the arc, when many young poets were in revolt agains…
This work endeavors to redefine the theoretical assumptions by which Maghrebian francophone literature is perceived and analyzed. It demonstrates the limits of readings that fail to implement multicultural perspectives. Based on a close reading of the novels and essays of the Al…
A number of texts in the Hebrew Bible portray the God of Israel as engaging in deceptive practices. This dissertation examines what the ancient Israelites thought about the idea of divine deception and the implications of this reflection for understanding their worldview. The id…
As the hereditary leader of the Safavid Sufi Order, Shah Ismail founded the Safavid dynasty in 1501. This study goes beyond Shah Ismail's historical legacy, however, to examine the pious and literary sources which have shaped a permanent place for him within the Alevi-Bektashi c…
This dissertation argues for the importance of a feminist hermeneutics which refuses to submit to the dominant androcentric discourse of rabbinic literature. Analyzing the talmudic discussions of menstrual regulations (Niddah), it engages in readings of select texts which have a…
The present study deals with translating Arabic literature into English and French, its main aspects, issues and effects on the representation of Arab culture in the West. It is essentially inspired by Lawrence Venuti's ideas on translation and the “formation of cultural identit…
The purpose of our thesis is to show the important role of the woman in the novelistic autobiography of Léon l'Africain. Inspired by the Description de l'Afrique, written by the famous arab geographer Mohamed al-Wazzan ez-Zayyati, Maalouf converted this autobiography to a quest …