الفهرس 
introductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 32 |  |  |
| | | from | 32 | | |
Abstract
The seed of my MA thesis was planted in my head, a long way before I even joined the English Department. It started with a statement made by my dear teacher Mr. Karl Kronthaler, when he confided one day: ”You are quite lucky! You have the best of both worlds; you absorbed Egyptian traditions, yet managed to retain the open-mindedness we try to teach you at school. Your character is a unique mix of the German and Egyptian mentalities”. Indeed, that point had struck me before, yet my conclusion was not as positive; I realized that I did not fit in. Born and bred in Egypt, I absorbed a lot of Egyptian customs and beliefs that made me distinctly non-German, yet my journey with the German culture at the German school also made me a bit of a foreigner in my own country. Was this something to be celebrated? It was definitely special that I had access to two very different cultures and could, to a great extent, navigate through both with much ease. Yet, I have to confess I was left feeling empty and strangely out of place in my own home.
During my fourth year in college, Dr. Azza El-Kholy introduced me to W.E.B Du Bois and I was very relieved to find out that it was not only me who felt this way. His theory of double consciousness struck a chord with me and at this point I decided that this is the topic I would like to deal with. Veering away from ethnic American subgenres that have been exhausted, I decided to combine this academic interest in double consciousness and ethnic American literature with my personal interest in Korea and its culture. Korea in and of itself always struck me as a happy medium between the Arab world and the West. Korean society is conservative and embedded in tradition- though not as conservative as our Middle-Eastern tradition- yet displays a very open, progressive and modern mindset. With the support of my supervisors, thus started my journey to examine how Korean Americans feel about their unique position between cultures