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249378

The American Soft Power between Cultural Reconciliation and Identity Obliteration in Multiethnic-Oriented Novels

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

اللغويات

Abstract

One of the debatable concepts which receive an increasing interest among scholars, philosophers, politicians, sociologists, and others is the concept of 'soft power'. A concept with a long history and a contested nature, soft power was mainly developed by Joseph S. Nye, the American political scientist, to ensure the idea that USA can realize all its wants through attractiveness rather than coercion or payment. For him, soft power is more rewarding and less costly. It is through soft power that America can realize what the military power failed to achieve. This idea of influencing citizens/nations through persuasion rather than coercion urges some scholars to relate Nye's approach to the third dimension model of power developed by Steven Michael Lukes. Through this dimension, Lukes also discusses the ability to influence individuals' thoughts and make them accept things that they are familiar to be in opposition with. It is the most effective and the most dangerous form of power. Due to the inseparable and interdisciplinary relationship between literature and politics, the aim of this study is to analyze Nye's perspective on soft power and to examine the similarities between his opinions on soft power and Lukes' third dimension of power. The study then applies both approaches to some selected novels from different cultures, including Amricanly by the Egyptian novelist Sunallah Ibrahim, The American Granddaughter by the Iraqi novelist Inaam Kachachi, and Americanah by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . It is an interdisciplinary literary critical study.

DOI

10.21608/jfafu.2022.142432.1770

Keywords

Joseph Nye, Steven Lukes, Amricanly, American Granddaughter, Americanah

Authors

First Name

Dr. Amal Galal Mohammad

Last Name

Morsy

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Fayoum University, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Literature

Email

agm01@fayou.edu.eg

City

Fayoum

Orcid

-

Volume

13

Article Issue

العدد 2 (اللغويات)

Related Issue

20293

Issue Date

2021-07-01

Receive Date

2022-06-02

Publish Date

2021-07-01

Page Start

2,355

Page End

2,415

Print ISSN

2357-0709

Online ISSN

2735-3281

Link

https://jfafu.journals.ekb.eg/article_249378.html

Detail API

https://jfafu.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=249378

Order

52

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

970

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

مجلة کلية الآداب جامعة الفيوم

Publication Link

https://jfafu.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

The American Soft Power between Cultural Reconciliation and Identity Obliteration in Multiethnic-Oriented Novels

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023