This presentation examines environmental issues and concerns in a selection of modern Arabic novels from different Arabic contexts and settings. The presentation specifically investigates how literary environmental ethics and concerns relate to politics. It argues that the widespread, continuous political conflicts and transitions over power and resources that dominate the majority of Arab countries since their independence in the second half of the 20th century to the present time have aroused inquiries in relation to concepts of environmental justices, spatial violence and sustainability. By examining how Arab novelists represent Arabized environments and spaces, this presentation traces their engagement with significant political and environmental changes and problems in their countries and their insightful anticipations of greater environmental calamities to come.

Jihan Zakarriya is assistant professor at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University. She completed a PhD in English literature at Cardiff University where she compares South African and Palestinian resistance literature from a postcolonial, contrapuntal perspective. She also completed a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship at the University of Michigan. In her postdoctoral research, Jihan explores ecocritical theory and literature, with a specific focus on interconnections between environmental, political and gender violence in Arabic literature and culture.

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