423230

Agonistic Pluralism as Counterhegemony: A Reading of Raba’i al-Madhoun’s The Lady from Tel Aviv

Article

Last updated: 27 Apr 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

اللغات: تضم (اللغة العربية، اللغة الإنجليزية، اللغة الفرنسية، اللغة العبرية، اللغة الفارسية، اللغة الترکية، ....).

Abstract

This research adopts a poststructuralist political framework, specifically Chantal Mouffe's subversive political concepts regarding agonistic pluralism, to analyze Raba'i al-Madhoun's (2013) novel The Lady from Tel Aviv (al-sayyidah min tal abīb). Given Mouffe's concepts articulated in a number of her books, it is posited that the novel advocates for the inclusion of suppressed voices to be articulated within the hegemonic hostile sphere of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Following Mouffe's theory, the novel acknowledges conflict but also explores, through personal relationships and intimate dialogue, the potential for post-conventional identities and authentic understanding to transform enemies into adversaries and antagonism into moral agonism. Though inherently humanitarian, moral agonism–a byproduct of agonistic pluralism–fails in taming hostility and the associated hegemonic structural determinism within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the study demonstrates. The particularities of the conventional relational identity constructs of the concerned individuals and communities are revealed to be obstructing any claims to pluralist democracy and the rational selves. These conventional relational identity particularities are foregrounded as tied to a long historical legacy of bloodshed, assassination, destruction and genocide, which are never abandoned.

DOI

10.21608/bfa.2025.365598.1476

Keywords

Agonistic Pluralism, Raba’I al-Madhoun, The Lady from Tel Aviv, Antagonism, post-conventional identities

Authors

First Name

Dr. Haris

Last Name

A. Noureiddin

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

قسم اللغة الانجليزية كلية الالسن جامعة اسوان

Email

hares11@yahoo.com

City

Sohag

Orcid

-

Volume

75

Article Issue

75

Related Issue

54096

Issue Date

2025-04-01

Receive Date

2025-03-05

Publish Date

2025-04-01

Page Start

3

Page End

26

Print ISSN

1110-7839

Online ISSN

2785-986X

Link

https://bfa.journals.ekb.eg/article_423230.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=423230

Order

15

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

1,823

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

مجلة کلية الآداب

Publication Link

https://bfa.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Agonistic Pluralism as Counterhegemony: A Reading of Raba’i al-Madhoun’s The Lady from Tel Aviv

Details

Type

Article

Created At

27 Apr 2025