Arab Studies Quarterly, Volume 47, Issue 4, begins with Ali Salami’s article “Temporal Ruptures and Decolonial Resistance in Sahar Khalifeh’s Wild Thorns” which depicts West Bank resistance to Israeli occupation that suppresses Palestinian life and liberty. The article utilises a few concepts to show how the novel’s narrative techniques “generate temporal disjunctions and counteract the colonization of Palestinian time.” Sahar Khalifeh’s techniques show how Palestinian agency and resistance counter the occupation’s attempts “to regulate Palestinian temporality.”

Reem Abdel Barr’s article “National Emotions and Egypt’s Middle-Class/Bourgeoisie in Two National Songs Prior to the 2011 Revolution” analyses two national songs through the concept of “emotions” to argue how the concept is critical to creating a “middle class/bourgeois image of Egypt.” Interrogating the relationship between emotions, culture, and national songs prior to a “revolutionary moment” that challenges “bourgeois values,” the article emphasises “emotions” as a “site of the political.”

Samir Abed-Rabbo’s memoir “Glimpses of the Early Life of a Palestinian Refugee: A Memoir” describes the early life of the author as a refugee in the context of the changing political situation of the period. The author’s description of his life depicts the lives of millions of Palestinian refugees and how political events had impacted them.