Rewriting Beirut as a Feminine, Mediterranean, and Postcolonial Space in Jean Said Makdisi’s Beirut Fragments (1990)

Abstract

This paper explores how the city of Beirut operates as a historically hybrid space in Beirut Fragments by Jean Said Makdisi (1990). It argues that, through the female’s representation in the narrative, Beirut, as a space, acquires a Feminist, Mediterranean, and Postcolonial consciousness that shapes its identity. Put differently, Beirut works conceptually by bringing together the form and meaning of the location of culture, following the postmodern tradition. Drawing on a mixed theoretical framework that conjoins feminist, postcolonial, and philosophical approaches, the study investigates the intersections of war, space, and gender in the making of Mediterranean cultures. My argument mainly rests on Edward Said’s notion of the worldliness of the text and its aesthetic and semantic structures, which it undergoes in the context. Building on the contributions of scholars from the economic, political, anthropological, and artistic spheres, the paper offers an interdisciplinary reading of Beirut’s fragmented archival memoir, which has been widely ignored in comparative studies and cultural encounters. The analysis highlights how the city's destruction and reconstruction mirror the geographical complexity of Beirut in a contested region of neighboring spaces, which positions the city as both a site of resilience and oppression from the perspective of a female author. The paper also aims to reveal how the Mediterranean is a historical site of intertwining cultures through physical spaces and the memory of lost archives. Beirut, as a text of femininity within its Mediterranean and Postcolonial condition, emblematizes survival and agency amid the remnants of violence and occupation.