I am from Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest populations of Arab immigrants in the United States. This mixing of cultures, of peoples, of identities has informed my writing in many ways. Narrative themes of immigration, exile and isolation inspire my writing and my thesis represents chapters from my first novel, tracing the Arab American immigration experience from 1914 until 1967; and, my second novel, set in Detroit, continues this narrative through the perspectives of two characters, drawing on the post 9-11 Arab American community and experience. The poet Hayan Charara has spoken of “the absence of a ‘personal history’ of the Middle East. . . for those whose families were among the first waves of Arabs to immigrate to the United States.” As an Arab American writer, my fiction attempts to create threads of memory, of family, of stories, that connect us back to a similar space.

Homeplace of Hands: Fractal Performativity of Vulnerable Resistance is a feminist autoethnography of possibility that puts on display two new concepts I’ve named fractal performativity and vulnerable resistance. Fractal performativity as a way of seeing is an integrative performance methodology that utilizes fractal geometry and performative autoethnography and brings together performance studies, feminist theory, multiethnic literature, personal story and poetry to communicate vulnerable resistance as a strategy for social transformation and selfhood. Vulnerable resistance as a way of being embodies a praxis of homeplace enacted through five modes I’ve identified as nurturance, sustenance, maintenance, performance, and alliance, expressed through the daily work of the hand as a metaphor, tool, and fractal. Deploying fractal performativity as an integrative method and conceptual framework, I design the fractal hand as a template that embodies intersecting identities and holds my stories as I cultivate homeplace and enact vulnerable resistance through the five modes. For scholar-artist- activists working on the margins, this integrative strategy offers hope to keep coming back day after day, and a template for cultivating homeplace of vulnerable resistance.

abstract: Non-Natives and Nativists is a relational analysis of contemporary multiethnic literatures in two countries formed by settler colonialism, the process of nation-building by which colonizers attempt to permanently invade Indigenous lands and develop their own beliefs and practices as governing principles. This dissertation focuses on narratives that establish and sustain settlers’ claims to belonging in the US and Australia and counter-narratives that problematize, subvert, and disavow such claims. The primary focus of my critique is on settler-authored works and the ways they engage with, perpetuate, and occasionally challenge normalized conditions of belonging in the US and Australia; however, every chapter discusses works by Indigenous writers or non-Indigenous writers of color that put forward alternative, overlapping, and often competing claims to belonging. Naming settler narrative strategies and juxtaposing them against those of Indigenous and arrivant populations is meant to unsettle the common sense logic of settler belonging. In other words, the specific features of settler colonialism promulgate and govern a range of devices and motifs through which settler storytellers in both nations respond to related desires, anxieties, and perceived crises. Narrative devices such as author-perpetrated identity hoax, settings imbued with uncanny hauntings, and plots driven by fear of invasion recur to the point of becoming recognizable tropes. Their perpetuation supports the notion that the logics underwriting settler colonialism persist beyond periods of initial colonization and historical frontier violence. These logics—elimination and possession—still shape present-day societies in settler nations, and literature is one of the primary vehicles by which they are operationalized. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

Current scholarship in literacy education underscores the inefficacy of standardized education in public schools, particularly for minority students. At the same time, a longstanding lack of understanding between the various culture groups that live in the United States often results in minority groups that are either stereotyped, misunderstood, or viewed as Other. Both of these issues can be traced to the literature that students read in school, which focuses on "classic" literature—often synonymous with "white" literature—that excludes minority narratives. While minorities struggle more with "academic literacy" (the ability to read and write in an active, reflective manner), there is also a pressing need to educate all students in "cultural literacy," or a knowledge of and appreciation for difference in worldview, culture, and opinion. One possible solution is a more effective implementation of multiethnic young adult literature in the classroom. Careful consideration of specific cultural texts can help minority students connect positively with literature, increasing student engagement with academics. Providing educators, librarians, and parents with a framework for selecting literature that begins to address this issue is a critical first step in empowering minority students with emotional and intellectual development as well as providing mainstream students with alternative perspectives that establish common ground, develop social awareness, and reduce stereotyping across groups. This thesis examines literacy and education studies to develop criteria and rationales for selecting books that appeal not only to minorities, but to readers from outside those groups. These criteria provide useful guidelines for educators and librarians in selecting multicultural novels for young adults that (1) act as "mirrors" of relatability to boost self-esteem and foster a love of reading in minority youth, and (2) provide "windows" into other cultures that promote greater cross-cultural respect and understanding. After setting up a theoretical framework that lays out the challenges and benefits to this approach as well as criteria for selecting these novels, this paper provides analyses of several books that meet these criteria as well as a booklist of additional titles. Addressing these issues within the context of young adult literature is crucial to the development of self-assertive, productive adults who value themselves and the different individuals that they interact with on a daily basis; on the other hand, failure to address these issues early perpetuates a cycle of marginalization and distrust that is difficult to break in the adult world.