Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective - Rilegato

Kassab, Elizabeth Suzanne

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0231144881 ISBN 13: 9780231144889

Casa editrice: Columbia Univ Pr, 2009

Riassunto

During the second half of the twentieth century, the Arab intellectual and political scene polarized between a search for totalizing doctrines—nationalist, Marxist, and religious—and radical critique. Arab thinkers were reacting to the disenchanting experience of postindependence Arab states, as well as to authoritarianism, intolerance, and failed development. They were also responding to successive defeats by Israel, humiliation, and injustice. The first book to take stock of these critical responses, this volume illuminates the relationship between cultural and political critique in the work of major Arab thinkers, and it connects Arab debates on cultural malaise, identity, and authenticity to the postcolonial issues of Latin America and Africa, revealing the shared struggles of different regions and various Arab concerns.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (PhD, Philosophy, Fribourg) is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Head of Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar. She is the author of Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective (Columbia, 2010), which received the 2013 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Contribution to the Development of Nations, one of the most prestigious and well-funded prizes in the Arab world. Kassab has been a research fellow at Columbia (2000-2004) and a visiting professor at Columbia's Middle East Institute (2008), among other previous appointments. Her interests include modern and contemporary Arab philosophy, postcolonial cultural critique, and modern European philosophy.

Product Description:

The disastrous outcome of the Six-Day War led to a major shift in Arab intellectual and popular thought. Movements to liberalize and decolonize several Arab nations had failed, leading to further occupation and repression and a severe crisis in culture and politics. In response to these events, two trends crystallized: totalizing doctrines, especially of a religious nature, and a revitalized critique directed at prevailing modes of thinking and ideology. The first book to take stock of this critical trend, this volume illuminates the interface between cultural and political critique in the major writings of Arab thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century and compares it to similar elaborations in other postcolonial contexts. Arab intellectuals of the post-1967 period struggled with issues of politics, religion, secularism, democracy, and gender. Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab identifies the main topics and preoccupations of these thinkers and traces their ideas back to the Arab Renaissance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A crucial aspect connects Arab debates concerning cultural malaise, identity, and authenticity to the postcolonial issues of Latin America and Africa, revealing the shared struggles of different regions and various Arab specificities. Kassab also reflects on the challenges of critical thinking in postcolonial settings due to a disrupted sense of history, a distorted sense of reality, and a disturbed sense of self, aggravated by postindependence disenchantment.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Columbia Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0231144881
• ISBN 13: 9780231144889
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 496