28th Annual Student Research Conference
Oil and Dehumanization: A Post-Colonial Criticism of Abdelrahman Munif's Cities of Salt
Evan T. Cioni
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
Abdelrahman Munif's novel Cities of Salt presents the struggle of everyday life for Arabic workers who have been coerced into working for a western company extracting oil from their region. The text describes the Arabic story of adapting to fit the changes brought on by western influence and the rapid and forced modernization of their society. Much of the suffering that takes place within the novel are direct and indirect results of the westerner's failure to properly treat their indentured workers as actual human beings. Through exploring what colonization in its modern sense, we can learn the ways in which this western corporation was essentially able to conquer and oppress the native people without ever defeating the local government. Through colonizing the area the Americans installed a foreign social hierarchy which encouraged the people on the bottom of it to be mistreated severely.
Keywords: Cities of Salt, Abdelrahman Munif, oil
Topic(s):English
Middle Eastern Studies
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 302-5
Location: VH 1010
Time: 2:00