The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual: Prophecy, Exile and the Nation

by Zeina G. Halabi

Overview

In this book Zeina G. Halabi examines the figure of the intellectual as prophet, national icon, and exile in contemporary Arabic literature and film. Staging a comparative dialogue with writers and critics such as Elias Khoury, Edward Said, Jurji Zaidan, and Mahmoud Darwish, Halabi focuses on new articulations of loss, displacement, and memory in works by Rabee Jaber, Elia Suleiman, Rawi Hage, Rashid al-Daif, and Seba al-Herz. She argues that the ambivalence and disillusionment with the role of the intellectual in contemporary representations operate as a productive reclaiming of the ‘political’ in an allegedly apolitical context. The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual offers the critical tools to understand the evolving relations between the intellectual and power, and the author and the text in the hitherto uncharted contemporary era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474421393
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Series:	Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Zeina G. Halabi is Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature at the American University of Beirut. She specializes in modern Arabic literature with particular interest in questions of loss, mourning, and dissidence in contemporary literature and visual culture. She has authored articles on the shifting notion of political commitment in the writings of canonical and emerging Arab writers.

Table of Contents

List of StillsNote on Translations and TransliterationAcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroduction: In the Beginning Was the WordChapter 1. Requiem for the EnlightenmentChapter 2. Elegy for the IntellectualChapter 3. The Banality of ExileChapter 4. Ruins of Secular NationalismChapter 5. The Political RemainsNotesBibliographyIndex

What People are Saying About This

'The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual is one of those rare works that manages to describe an aesthetic formation — in this case, a generation of contemporary Arab writers — in order to reflect generatively on the intersections of history, politics and culture. Accessible and eloquent, this brilliant book forges new ways of relating to literary pasts and futures.'

Michael Allan

'The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual is one of those rare works that manages to describe an aesthetic formation — in this case, a generation of contemporary Arab writers — in order to reflect generatively on the intersections of history, politics and culture. Accessible and eloquent, this brilliant book forges new ways of relating to literary pasts and futures.'

Editorial Reviews

"The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual is one of those rare works that manages to describe an aesthetic formation - in this case, a generation of contemporary Arab writers - in order to reflect generatively on the intersections of history, politics and culture. Accessible and eloquent, this brilliant book forges new ways of relating to literary pasts and futures." — Michael Allan, Associate Professor in Comparative Literature, University of Oregon

From the Publisher

'The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual is one of those rare works that manages to describe an aesthetic formation — in this case, a generation of contemporary Arab writers — in order to reflect generatively on the intersections of history, politics and culture. Accessible and eloquent, this brilliant book forges new ways of relating to literary pasts and futures.'

Michael Allan