Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

Description

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. Contents Preface xi Introduction: Cultural Malaise and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century Western, Postcolonial, and Arab Debates 1 1. The First Modern Arab Cultural Renaissance, or Nahda: From the Mid–Nineteenth Century to the Mid– Twentieth Century 17 2. Critique After the 1967 Defeat 48 3. Marxist, Epistemological, and Psychological Readings of Major Conferences on Cultural Decline, Renewal, and Authenticity 116 4. Critique in Islamic Theology 173 5. Secular Critique 220 6. Breaking the Postcolonial Solitude: Arab Motifs in Comparative Perspective 282 Conclusion: The New Nahda Impulses, Reclaiming the Right to Freedom and Life 347 Notes 365 Bibliography 431 Index 473