Queerness and the Cosmopolitan

ABSTRACT

In this article, I read Rashid al-Daif’s and Joachim Helfer’s What Makes a Man? Sex Talk in Beirut and Berlin (2015) as a dialogue on (homo)sexuality discourse within the framework of cosmopolitanism delineated by Kwame Anthony Appiah, in which he calls for the necessity of conversation across national and cultural boundaries in order to enhance our understanding of one another’s differences. I argue that al-Daif’s and Helfer’s cross-cultural exchange can be understood within the lines of negotiating (dis)involvement in the Eurocentric assimilationist project as identified by Joseph Massad. I read What Makes a Man alongside al-Daif’s earlier novel Who’s Afraid of Meryl Streep? (2001) and propose an analytic approach to these texts within the context of literary agitation. My analysis attends to the dynamics of defining self in relation to the other in matters of sexuality and the role of language, translation, and readership. This article suggests that the centrality of gender and (homo)sexuality discourse to the cross-cultural conversation appropriates queerness to local and global readers within humanistic lines of inquiry.

KEYWORDS:

• Cosmopolitanism
• (homo)sexuality
• intercultural dialogue
• 21st C. Lebanese literature
• self and other
• Arab LGBTQ

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 On masculinity studies see, for instance (Ghoussoub and Sinclair-Webb 2000, Aghacy 2009). For a sample of recent queer studies in the Arab Middle East, see (al-Samman and El-Ariss 2013, Merabet 2014, Atshan 2020).

2 See (WrightJr and Rowson 1997, El-Rouayheb 2005).

3 For a full description of the program please see: https://www.wiko-berlin.de/en/institute/projects-cooperations/projects/archive/working-group-modernity-and-islam/west-eastern-divan.

4 See for instance Rebecca Dyer’s examination of Helfer’s response to al-Daif’s account as engaging in colonial and orientalist discourse and Andreas Krass study of al-Daif’s narrative as vindicating heteronormativity.

5 Helfer made these remarks at a panel with Rachid al-Daif orgasnied by The Institute For Cultural Inquiry in Berlin in May 2017. A recoding of the panel is available online at: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/what-makes-a-man/.

6 See Hanna 2017 for my earlier study of glocal queer literature of the Arab world.

7 See also Publisher’s Note p. vii. In order to accentuate the fictionalised nature of al-Daif’s narrative, I follow Seigneurie, Rebecca Dyer, and Michael Allan and distinguish in my analysis between al-Daif and Helfer, the authors; and Rashid and Joachim, the characters.

8 All references to al-Daif’s text will list page numbers from the original Arabic (2006) and the English translation (2015).

9 Although Lebanon is considered as more progressive than other Arab countries—Beirut in particular hosts an active LGBTQ community and literary figures tend to engage with matters related to sexual morality in general and homosexuality in particular—still, prevalent societal gender and sexuality norms are quite conservative in other parts of the Arab world. In some Arab and Middle Eastern countries, homosexuality is not only a taboo, it is punished by law.

10 See Seigneurie 2015 and Liscutin 2007.

11 Liscutin asserts: ‘A reader versed in both languages and familiar with both the Arabic original and the German book, will certainly be irritated, to the [sic] say the very least, by the deeply flawed ‘translation’ process imposed upon Rashid al-Daif and his text for the German edition.’ (Liscutin 2007)

12 The example listed here can be read against the backdrop of orientalist tendency of educating the ‘colonised’ other about themselves and their surroundings. For a detailed analysis on the colonial and orientalist discourse in al-Daif and Helfer’s exchange, see Dyer 2015.

13 See Sinno 2021.

14 In the original Arabic, al-Daif uses the verb ‘tatasallal’ which indicates an act of infiltration, permeation, or penetration. Seigneurie’s use of the verb ‘to penetrate’ in his English translation is perfectly fitting for the larger context of this intercultural exchange and al-Daif’s oeuvre.

15 Al-Daif clarifies his choice of the title as it ‘recalls a tenth century erotic book titled The Return of the Old Man to His Youth.’ The title, al-Daif asserts, was not intended to ‘say heterosexuality is the norm and homosexuality is an aberration.’ It conveys the form of banter which he used when Helfer informed him during their encounter that he might become a father, al-Daif commented jokingly ‘are you back to your senses?’ Using this as an inspiration for his title, al-Daif assumed that Helfer ‘was going to smile at the naivety of the title and its apparent simplicity.’ (Al-Daif and Helfer 2017)

16 See Seigneurie 2015, 195–6.

17 It is worth noting that Rashid’s account here is dismissive of the issue of paedophilia, as hasty Arab proponents of homosexuality who seek to reframe it as an ‘accepted’ Arab tradition in pre-colonial, Abbasid times sometimes do.

18 The Abbasid period (750-1258 A.D.) celebrated adab al-Zurafa (entertainment literature) and mujun (bawdy poetry). For an account on Zurafa literature, see al-Samman 2008: 270–310. For a brief account on mujūn literature see Massad 2008, 54–55, 61, 123–124.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kifah Hanna

Kifah Hanna is the Charles A. Dana Research Associate Professor of Language and Culture Studies at Trinity College in Connecticut, USA. She earned her MSc and PhD in Comparative and General Literature, and Middle East Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the United Kingdom. She is the author of Feminism and Avant-Garde Aesthetics in the Levantine Novel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Her work appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Her research interests broadly include twentieth- and twenty-first-century Arabic literature, feminist and queer theory, (trans-)nationalism, (trans-)cultural studies, cinema studies, postcolonial theory, war literature, comparative literature, and world literature.