Lila Abu-Lughod, "Honor and Shame" and:
For more assignment ideas involving this essay, please visit the Abu-Lughod
link-o-mat.
Abu-Lughod and Nussbaum: Gaining and Losing Access to the Central Human
Functional Capabilities
In "Honor and Shame," Lila Abu-Lughod describes how education
has changed the expectations of a young Bedouin woman named Kamla. Based
on Abu-Lughod's account, can we say with certainty whether Kamla was given
access to what Nussbaum terms the "central human functional capabilities"
prior to her marriage? Would she have access to all of the capabilities
after her marriage? How would Nussbaum recommend that we respond to Kamla's
transition? Would she share Abu-Lughod's ambivalence about Kamla's move
to the city?
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Abu-Lughod and Scott
In this assignment, I want you to use James Scott's terms and ideas to
help us better understand the workings of power in the Bedouin society
described in Lila Abu-Lughod's "Honor and Shame." And I want you to consider
how ideas we have encountered in other readings could help to improve
the lives of subordinate groups in that society.
Question:
What do the hidden transcripts and public transcripts reveal about the
arts of resistance practiced in Bedouin society? What ideas, institutions
or social practices discussed by either Benjamin Barber or Peter Drucker
could improve the lives of subordinate groups in Bedouin society if they
were introduced there?
Discussion:
This assignment's greatest challenge is that it asks you to apply Scott's
ideas to passages from Abu-Lughod's essay, and to use Scott's terms to
explain the sometimes hidden or even confusing elements in these passages.
In order to do this well, you will have to practice the arts of close
reading that Scott himself illustrates quoting passages and discussing
them very carefully to reveal details that might be easily overlooked.
You need to show how quotations or incidents in Abu-Lughod's essay become
clearer when framed with terms or ideas from Scott's essay. Try always
to be aware of the complexity of the situations her essay describes, and
remember that Scott tells us "Power relations are not, alas, so straightforward
that we can call what is said in power-laden contexts false and what is
said offstage true."
In applying the ideas of Barber or Drucker to Bedouin society, you may
feel like you are judging a different culture on Western terms, and that
may trouble you. You are welcome to examine the fairness of such cross-cultural
criticism if you like and to find an different approach to the assignment
if you think applying Western standards to Bedouin culture is not right.
For example, you might instead consider whether the Bedouin society that
Abu-Lughod describes will eventually develop the institutions and practices
described by Barber or Drucker as it becomes more Westernized or,
alternately, whether the people in that society might become even more
set in their ways in Jihad-like reaction to these Western ideas.
Assignment Goals:
To use ideas from one text to frame examples in another text. To practice
the skill of close-reading, discussing passages with great care and attention
to detail. To develop a well unified paper that uses three authors in
its argument.
Michael Goeller, Rutgers University, Fall 2000
In the previous assignment, you read about Bedouin culture--its depiction by Abu-Lughod and a young woman: "Kamla." Kamla describes her attempts to forge a new life after high school and the complex relationships Bedouins form among themselves as well as with outsiders: youths versus tradition-oriented elders, Bedouin tribes versus Egyptians, Bedouins versus Europeans, and so forth.
Examine Abu-Lughod's excerpts from Kamla's essay, popular songs, traditional poems, Egyptian radio programs, etc. Consider how Scott would view these different accounts along with certain non-verbal gestures by the dominant and subordinate groups (in terms of his "transcript" concept). How much has Kamla's 'face grown to fit the mask' created for her through the "public transcript" (as you define it)? What role does her sequestered social space play in forcing her to fit the mask or resist it through a "hidden transcript" (as you describe it)? How does Kamla's use of religious doctrine factor into this complex dance of identity: i.e., use of The Prophet or Piety to validate the "public transcript," "the hidden transcript" or Kamla's switch between both?
Carl Nelson, Rutgers University, Spring 2005
From The Public and the Private Self.
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Abu-Lughod, Faludi, and Tannen
In previous assignments, you have read discussions regarding institutions of higher learning and some of their peculiar conventions. These conventions included behaviors and conceptual approaches marginalizing--or, at times, even outright rejecting--women. In "Honor and Shame," we read about Kamla. Her struggle to become educated represents 'more of the same' while raising other themes worthy of further connection and exploration.
Examine the examples of formal training and agonistic debating found in Lila Abu-Lughod's essay. Consider, too, the leaping back and forth between public and private identity in Kamla's narrative and how "play" factors into these shifts. Find parallel moments for all these aspects in Tannen and Faludi. Finally, what importance do you assign to "play" (however you choose to define it) when it comes to transforming someone through educational agonistic training and how might "play's" influence shift between the public and private self (or males and females undergoing agonistic training)?
Carl Nelson, Rutgers University, Spring 2005
From The Public and the Private Self.
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