Leila Ahmed , "On Becoming an Arab "

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:

1. How many definitions of the word Arab does Ahmed provide in "On Becoming an Arab"? Construct a chart that tracks the changes in the meaning of arab and Arab over time. Why did Ahmed reject the name in the 1950s and why does she accept it now?

2. Ahmed states repeatedly in her piece that she is "not here to betray." One could argue that repeating this declaration is a clear sign that Ahmed is concerned she will be read as betraying someone or some cause. Whom is she worried about betraying? And why does she feel that her search for her own identity might appear to justify the charge of betrayal?  

3. What role does Palestine play in Ahmed's project of defining the contemporary meanings of Arab and Egyptian?

Questions for Writing:  

1. Ahmed describes her project as "a personal odyssey through the politics, emotions, and history of our becoming Arab." Why does she include emotions as part of her project? Where do you see emotion surfacing in her argument? What role should emotions play in research on the formation of the self in history?

2. Ahmed's story begins with a slap and ends with "a sense of loss—measureless, measureless loss..." What would you say Ahmed has learned by the end of her odyssey? Is her lesson one that applies to people generally or only to expatriates?

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. In Ahmed's narrative, she documents the changing meaning of Arab over time, pointing to a moment when the word "silently carried within it its polar opposite—Zionest/Jew—without which hidden, silent connotation it actually had no meaning." Later in her account, Ahmed reports that "[t]he European meaning of 'arab' hollowed out our word, replacing it entirely with itself." Does Ahmed find herself caught in one version of the "argument culture" that Deborah Tannen describes in "The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope for Dialogue"? What roles do conflict and dialogue play in the identity formation of an individual? A nation?

2. Both Ahmed and Jonathan Boyarin are concerned with locating the self in time, and both are concerned with memory and loss. Their methods for pursuing their shared interests diverge, however, as do their writing styles and their conclusions: Ahmed closes with "a sense of loss—measureless, measureless loss..." while Boyarin ends with "the marginal redemption of one Jew." How do you account for these differences? What might those who are not Jews or Arabs learn from the journeys of these two writers? Write an essay where you discuss what, if anything, can be learned from reading about another's search for identity.