College Literature

Abstract:

This essay focuses on how Mohja Kahf, in The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006), and Randa Jarrar, in A Map of Home (2008), are interested in multiple identity positions (national, ethnic, and religious) and hybridized cultural forms, specifically the bildungsroman and popular music. Responding to various influential theories of the bildungsroman, this essay examines how Kahf and Jarrar deploy what is, historically, a European literary form to foster global ummah (community), which links the Muslim community around the world. The privileged metaphor I will use here, which is derived from Kahf's novel, is that of "The Crossroads of America" and the "crisscrossing" of geographical, religious, ethnic, and national borders. These novels of American Muslim Bildung challenge myths of American selfhood and individualism by exploring the idea of the ummah and how the protagonists develop within it. In doing so, both authors respect earlier writers by following their writing techniques, which tend to juxtapose Islamic practices with social life; for instance, Kahf and Jarrar represent their protagonists practising Islamic tenets (prayer) while engaging popular culture: singing and writing poems or letters.