From the Unsayable to Engineered Confession: The Sexual Taboo in Modern Arabic Fiction (1980–2015)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69760/jales.2026003002Keywords:
sexual taboo, engineered confession, narrative spatiality, paratext and censorship, ethical focalization, modern Arabic fictionAbstract
This article conceptualizes the “unsayable” not as a fixed prohibition but as a dynamic dispositive that structures confession across paratexts, spaces, voices, and regimes of the gaze. It proposes a replicable analytic matrix aligning a mediation axis — ellipsis → avowal → mise en scène — with a contextual vector comprising the institutional eye, spatial configuration, vocal modality, and narrative tempo. The study applies scene-level coding to seven modern Arabic novels and engages in a calibrated counter-comparison with Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint to broaden the comparative scope. The analysis demonstrates that degrees of disclosure depend less on authorial boldness than on the nature of the surveilling eye — symbolic, communal, or procedural — and the permeability of its spatial membrane (sacred/urban; closed/open). The findings show how legal, religious, and market institutions modulate confessional discourse, and how literary texts convert taboo into an aesthetic architecture that redistributes voice, visibility, and agency for both artistic and political purposes.
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (1986). Veiled sentiments: Honor and poetry in a Bedouin society. University of California Press.
Al Aswany, A. (2002). ʿImārat Yaʿqūbyān [The Yacoubian Building]. Merit.
Al Aswany, A. (2004). The Yacoubian Building (H. Davies, Trans.). The American University in Cairo Press.
Alem, R. (2010). Ṭawq al-ḥamām [The Dove’s Necklace]. Dār al-Sāqī / Abjad.
Alem, R. (2016). The Dove’s Necklace (K. Halls & A. Talib, Trans.). Duckworth / Overlook.
Allen, R. (1995). The Arabic novel: An historical and critical introduction (2nd ed.). Syracuse University Press.
Alsanea, R. (2005). Banāt al-Riyāḍ [Girls of Riyadh]. Dār al-Sāqī.
Alsanea, R. (2007). Girls of Riyadh (M. Booth, Trans.). Penguin.
Ben Jelloun, T. (1987). La Nuit sacrée. Seuil.
Ben Jelloun, T. (1989). The Sacred Night (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Harcourt.
Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998). Sex in public. Critical Inquiry, 24(2), 547–566. https://doi.org/10.1086/448889
Booth, M. (2001). May her likes be multiplied: Biography and gender politics in Egypt. University of California Press.
Carmines, E. G., & Zeller, R. A. (1979). Reliability and validity assessment. SAGE.
Committee to Protect Journalists. (2001). Egypt: The Banquet for Seaweed case and freedom of expression (2000–2001). CPJ.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge.
El Sadda, H. (2012). Gender, nation, and the Arabic novel: Egypt, 1892–2008. Edinburgh University Press.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, Volume 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1976)
Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse: An essay in method (J. E. Lewin, Trans.). Cornell University Press.
Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation (J. E. Lewin, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Hafez, S. (1993). The genesis of Arabic narrative discourse. Saqi Books.
Haidar, H. (2000). A Banquet for Seaweed (A. Hibbard & O. Esber, Trans.). InterLitQ. (Original work published 1983)
Khoury, E. (1998). Bāb al-Shams [Gate of the Sun]. Dār al-Ādāb.
Khoury, E. (2006). Gate of the Sun (H. Davies, Trans.). Archipelago.
Lacan, J. (1977). The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (A. Sheridan, Trans.). W. W. Norton.
Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton University Press.
Massad, J. A. (2007). Desiring Arabs. University of Chicago Press.
Mehrez, S. (2008). Egypt’s culture wars: Politics and practice. Routledge.
Moretti, F. (2013). Distant reading. Verso.
Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf.
Mosteghanemi, A. (1993). Dhākirat al-Jasad [Memory in the Flesh]. Dār al-Ādāb.
Mosteghanemi, A. (2000). Memory in the Flesh (B. A. Sreih, Trans.). The American University in Cairo Press.
Neuendorf, K. A. (2017). The content analysis guidebook (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Ramsay, S. (2011). Reading machines: Toward an algorithmic criticism. University of Illinois Press.
Roth, P. (1969). Portnoy’s complaint. Random House.
Rubin, G. (1984). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In C. S. Vance (Ed.), Pleasure and danger: Exploring female sexuality (pp. 267–319). Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Yale University Press.
Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). Epistemology of the closet. University of California Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Journal of Azerbaijan Language and Education Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
