Commitment and Beyond
Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s
Edited by Friederike Pannewick Edited by Georges Khalil With Yvonne Albers
Hardback (Published)
(November 2015)
ISBN: 9783954900404
6.69 x 9.45 inches
Price: $119.00
On back order
This book is about relations between literature, society and politics in the Arab world. It is an attempt to come to terms with the changing conceptualizations of the political in Arabic literature in recent modern history. It examines historical and contemporary conceptions of literary commitment (iltizam) and how notions of ‘writing with a cause’ have been shaped, contested, re-actualized since the 1940s until today.
This book is about relations between literature, society and politics in the Arab world. It is an attempt to come to terms with the changing conceptualizations of the political in Arabic literature in recent modern history. It examines historical and contemporary conceptions of literary commitment (iltizam) and how notions of ‘writing with a cause’ have been shaped, contested, re-actualized since the 1940s until today. Against the backdrop of the current social and political transformations in the Arab world, questions on the role of the arts, specifically literature and its politics, arise with immediacy and require profound reflection and analysis. The chapters reexamine critically both current and historical notions of the political in modern Arabic literature as well as the legacy of iltizam as a term and an agenda. Literary commitment is understood here not just solely as a (completed) period in Arabic literary history but also as a vivid, changing and continuing idea that questions the role of literature and the author in and for a society.
- Edited by Friederike Pannewick
- Edited by Georges Khalil
- With Yvonne Albers
āSince 2011, ’the political’ has (again) become ubiquitous in all forms of Arab culture. At the same time many critics have questioned the role of writers and intellectuals. Did they play a role in stoking the popular uprisings? If not, and literature had indeed become somehwat disconnected from social change, what is its relevance? [...] Frederike Pannewick, Georges Khalil and Yvonne Albers’ timely volume approaches these questions through a sustained discussion of the term iltizam (engagement). Building on the pioneering work of Verena Klemm, the book presents twenty-two essays that track literary commitment from the 1940s to the present day. The authors represent a German-Arab network of literary scholars whose research has been developed concomitantly over decades. [The book] opens onto sociological questions of historical memory and the role literature might play in working through collective experiences, making [it] relevant beyond the field of literary studies. [...]<br/>The first section of the book, āOf poetics and Politics: Revolution and Literary Commitment,ā starts in the present with three articles on the Egyptian revolution of 2011. [...] The volume’s second section, āRoots of a Discourse: Historical Concepts of Literary Commitment,ā focuses on the watershed year of 1967. [...] The books third section, āRefiguring iltizam: Literary Commitment after 1967,ā focuses on what became of commitment in a literature that is sometimes interpreted as uncommited and de-politicized. [...] [The book] presents a number of fresh analytical angles and new, previously undiscussed, authors, espacially in the fourth and final section of the book, āCommitment or Dissent? Contemporary Perspectives.ā Here, the volume returns to the present with seven articles on literary and artistic works produced since the 1990s. They probe globalization, cultural disorientation, the impact of new social movements and political questions after the financial crisis, and the fragmentation of literaty forms in the age of social media. [...]<br/>The most exciting aspect of Commitment and Beyond is its ambitious attempt to connect contemporary changes in artistic production - confusing and multi-facetted as they may be - to the history of the 20th century, pushing other disciplines in Middle East studies to consider how historical events and figures are continuously reinterpreted.ā <br/><br/>Von: Sune Haugbolle (Roskilde University)<br/><br/>In: Journal of Arabic Literature 48, (2017), S. 205-209.
ā
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Gender, sozialer Status, historiographische Re-PrƤsentation:Zwei Frauenbiographien aus der frĆ¼hen Abbasidenzeit
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Prozesse von Aneignung und Abgrenzung in der zeitgenƶssischen tĆ¼rkischen Literatur
Decoding DAāISH
An Analysis of Poetic Exemplars and Discursive Strategies of Domination in the Jihadist Milieu
Sehnsucht nach Sinn
Literarische Semantisierung von Geschichte im zeitgenƶssischen tĆ¼rkischen Roman
Ein leises GerƤusch wie ein GefĆ¼hl des Sehnens
Dichtung und Zeugenschaft zum faschistischen Konzentrationslager in Libia Coloniale
Gestalten durch Verbergen
Ghassan Salhabs melancholischer Blick auf Beirut in Film, Video und Dichtung
Die EntblƶĆung der Wƶrter
aÅ”-Å idyÄqs literarische Listen als Kultur- und Gesellschaftskritik im 19. Jahrhundert
ErzƤhlte Tradition
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