Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA must read for all those who want to understand the Arab world's cultural predicament. -- Issa J. Boullata The Middle East Journal [An] outstanding contribution that does an excellent job of exposing the self-analysis of contemporary Arab culture. -- Yoav Di-Capua H-Levant ...a very important contribution to the field of Arab intellectual history...a much-need addition to our field. -- Orit Bashkin International Journal of Middle East Studies
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: Cultural Malaise and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century Western, Postcolonial, and Arab Debates 1. The First Modern Arab Cultural Renaissance, or Nahda: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Mid-Twentieth Century 2. Critique After the 1967 Defeat The Existential Dramatization of Critique the Day After the Defeat: Saadallah Wannous's Theatrical Oeuvre Humanistic Nationalism and Critical Reason: Qustantin Zurayq The Critique of Religious-Metaphysical Thought: Sadeq Jalal al-Azm The Critique of Ideology and Historicization: Abdallah Laroui Gendering Critique: Nawal el-Saadawi and the Late-Twentieth-Century Arab Feminists The Radicalization of Critique and the Call for Democracy: Reclaiming the Individual's Critical Faculties 3. Marxist, Epistemological, and Psychological Readings of Major Conferences on Cultural Decline, Renewal, and Authenticity The Cairo Conference of 1971: "Authenticity and Renewal in Contemporary Arab Culture" The Kuwait Conference of 1974: "The Crisis of Civilizational Development in the Arab Homeland" The Cairo Conference of 1984: "Heritage and the Challenges of the Age in the Arab Homeland: Authenticity and Contemporaneity" Critique in These Conferences: The Fixation on Tradition and the Intellectualization of the Malaise 4. Critique in Islamic Theology From the Unthought and the Unthinkable to the Thinkable: Mohammed Arkoun The Historicity of Revelation and the Struggle for Thought in the Time of Anathema: Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd Feminist Historicization of Religious Traditions: Nazira Zain al-Din, Fatima Mernissi, and Leila Ahmed An Islamic Theology of Liberation: The "Islamic Left" of Hassan Hanafi A Christian Arab Theology of Liberation: Naim Ateek and Mitri Raheb in Palestine-Israel On the Potential for Critique in Traditional Islam: Talal Asad's Analysis of the Public Criticism by Ulemas in Saudi Arabia Islamic Critique and the Cultural Malaise 5. Secular Critique Critique of the Exclusive Monopoly over "True" Islam: Farag Fouda The Importance of Keeping the Debate on the Human Level: Fouad Zakariyya Critique of the Essentialist and Romantic Conception of Identity: Aziz al-Azmeh Critique of the Islamicization of Knowledge and the Quest for an Indigenous Social Science: Bassam Tibi, Abdelkebir Khatibi, and Hisham Sharabi Critique of the Conciliatory Pattern of Thinking: Muhammad Jaber al-Ansari, Hisham Sharabi, and Nadeem Naimy Secularism, Democracy, and Cultural Critique Recentering the Historical, the Human, and the Partial: The Secular Call for Democracy and Human Rights 6. Breaking the Postcolonial Solitude: Arab Motifs in Comparative Perspective The Western Debates The Non-Western Postcolonial Debates Common Leitmotivs and Arab Specifi cities Shifting Priorities Conclusion: The New Nahda Impulses, Reclaiming the Right to Freedom and Life Notes Bibliography Index
