X Arab Reader ✦ Fresh

The anthology form is uniquely revealing because it is a technology of selection and exclusion. Every anthology performs an act of violence (leaving out the majority of texts) and an act of love (preserving a fragment for a specific future reader). By asking “Which X?” — X as gender, as sect, as class, as algorithm, as diaspora — we move from the sterile question “What is Arab literature?” to the more productive question: “For whom does Arab literature exist?”

The post-2011 refugee crisis and ongoing economic collapse have produced a massive Arab diaspora in Europe, North America, and the Gulf. Anthologies like The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: An Archive of Settler Colonial Violence (2021, as literature-adjacent) or Arab Voices in Diaspora (2023) address a reader who may not read Arabic fluently. These anthologies are often bilingual, with transliterated glossaries. The diasporic “X” reader reads to reconnect to a lost homeland or to explain their existence to non-Arab peers. x arab reader

This paper introduces the concept of the —where “X” functions as an algebraic placeholder for the specific, often conflicting, identity markers, political contexts, and technological platforms that shape reading practices. By examining how anthologies have been produced for, and consumed by, different “X” readers, we can map the fault lines of modern Arab cultural politics. The anthology form is uniquely revealing because it