Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab

Nov 2009 · Columbia University Press

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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.

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Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab is associate professor of philosophy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Her books include Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates (Columbia, 2019).