UCLA

This dissertation takes a comparative approach in examining works of literary fiction that represent the 1975-1990 war in Lebanon, the 2011-present war in Syria, and the 2003-present war in Iraq. Drawing on a corpus of writings by Mahā Ḥassan, Dīma Wannūs, Imān Ḥumaydān, Azhar Jirjīs, and others, some of which have received little or no scholarly attention, the dissertation examines works of Arabic war fiction that draw on an aesthetic of the uncanny in order to disrupt wartime temporal discourses. In Lebanon, these works disrupt the postwar reconstruction process, which relied upon the production of the illusion of a prosperous future at the expense of erasing the memory of the war and the unresolved losses that accompanied it. Uncanny works of Iraqi fiction, meanwhile, stage the return of histories left out of dominant discourses through frightening and often grotesque figures like the ghost and the animated corpse who act as powerful metaphors for the ways in which unresolved histories continue to haunt the present. Contemporary Syrian novels, finally, explore the psychological impact of protracted dictatorship through family sagas that explore long-lasting legacies of trauma. Ultimately, these works explore the temporal discourses that underlie protracted states of violence and, by drawing on an aesthetic of the uncanny, excavate memories that demonstrate that this violence emerged historically and that endeavor to keep alternative visions of the future alive even as violence continues.