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Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature

The Unmaking of the Arab IntellectualProphecy, Exile and the Nation

By Zeina G. Halabi

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£100.00

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About this book

Examines the depiction of intellectuals in contemporary Arabic literature
Zeina G. Halabi examines the unmaking of the intellectual as prophetic figure, national icon, and exile in Arabic literature and film from the 1990s onwards. She comparatively explores how contemporary writers and film directors such as Rabee Jaber, Rawi Hage, Rashid al-Daif, Seba al-Herz and Elia Suleiman have displaced the archetype of the intellectual as it appears in writings by Elias Khoury, Edward Said, Jurji Zaidan and Mahmoud Darwish. In so doing, Halabi identifies and theorises alternative articulations of political commitment, displacement, and loss in the wake of unfulfilled prophecies of emancipation and national liberation. The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual offers critical tools to understand the evolving relations between aesthetics and politics in the alleged post-political era of Arabic literature and culture.
Key Features

  • Examines the depiction of Arab intellectuals in post-1990s literature
  • Offers a new understanding of the political in the contemporary era
  • Re-reads the legacy of canonical modern Arab writers
  • Offers critical tools to understand the contemporary era


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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.'
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
About the author

Zeina G. Halabi

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.

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