DOCSLIB.ORG

Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel Ziad Elmarsafy ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd iii 23/10/2012 17:16 © Ziad Elmarsafy, 2012 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4140 6 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 5564 9 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 5566 3 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 5565 6 (Amazon ebook) The right of Ziad Elmarsafy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd iv 23/10/2012 17:16 Contents Series Editor’s Foreword vii Abbreviations x Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Ouverture 1 1 Naguib Mahfouz: (En)chanting Justice 23 2 Tayeb Salih: The Returns of the Saint 52 3 Maªmūd Al-Masʿadī: Witnessing Immortality 66 4 The Survival of Gamal Al-Ghitany 78 5 Ibrahim Al-Koni: Writing and Sacrifice 107 6 Tahar Ouettar: The Saint and the Nightmare of History 139 Epilogue: Bahaa Taher, Solidarity and Idealism 162 Notes 168 Bibliography 235 Index 253 ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd v 23/10/2012 17:16 ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd vi 23/10/2012 17:16 Series Editor’s Foreword new and unique series, ‘Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature’ A will, it is hoped, fill in a gap in scholarship in the field of modern Arabic literature. Its dedication to Arabic literature in the modern period, that is, from the nineteenth century onwards, is what makes it unique among series undertaken by academic publishers in the English-speaking world. Individual books on modern Arabic literature in general or aspects of it have been and continue to be published sporadically. Series on Islamic studies and Arab/ Islamic thought and civilisation are not in short supply either in the academic world, but these are far removed from the study of Arabic literature qua literature, that is, imaginative, creative literature as we understand the term when, for instance, we speak of English literature, or French literature, and so on. Even series labelled ‘Arabic/Middle Eastern Literature’ make no period distinction, extending their purview from the sixth century to the present, and often including non-Arabic literatures of the region. This series aims to redress the situation by focusing on the Arabic literature and criticism of today, stretching its interest to the earliest beginnings of Arab modernity in the nineteenth century. The need for such a dedicated series, and generally for the redoubling of scholarly endeavour in researching and introducing modern Arabic literature to the Western reader, has never been stronger. The significant growth in the last decades of the translation of contemporary Arab authors from all genres, especially fiction, into English; the higher profile of Arabic literature interna- tionally since the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988; the growing number of Arab authors living in the Western dias- pora and writing both in English and Arabic; the adoption of such authors and others by mainstream, high-circulation publishers, as opposed to the vii ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd vii 23/10/2012 17:16 viii | series editor’s foreword academic publishers of the past; the establishment of prestigious prizes, such as the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker), run by the Man Booker Foundation, which bring huge publicity to the shortlist and winner every year, as well as translation contracts into English and other languages – all this and more recently the events of the Arab Spring have heightened public interest, let alone academic, in all things Arab, and not least Arabic literature. It is therefore part of the ambition of this series that it will be increasingly addressing a wider reading public beyond its natural ter- ritory of students and researchers in Arabic and world literature. Nor indeed is the academic readership of the series expected to be confined to special- ists in literature in light of the growing trend for interdisciplinarity, which increasingly sees scholars crossing field boundaries in their research tools and coming up with findings that equally cross discipline borders in their appeal. Sufi thought and practice and their main historical exponents have exercised a not insubstantial influence on all main genres of modern Arabic literature: poetry, drama and fiction. In poetry the influence can be traced back to the revivalist or neo-classical period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries down to the contemporary Adūnīs (b. 1930) and later poets. In drama, and particularly verse drama, it was the Egyptian poet, Salah Abd al- Sabur (1930–81) who showed the relevance of Sufi thought and practice to contemporary political life in his memorable play of the 1960s, The Tragedy of Al-Hallaj. When we come to the novel, the art form most adept by its nature at the detailed representation of reality, it was no wonder that Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s novel, Zeinab (1912), broadly accepted as the first novel in Arabic of literary quality, reflected in some of its scenes popular Sufi practices and beliefs, as did the great Taha Husayn’s fictionalised autobiography,The Stream of Days (1929). It is as if the Arabic novel was born with a genetic propensity towards engagement with Sufism, a condition which continued unabated from those early days until the present, with the relationship grow- ing ever more intense and complex, naturally more so with some authors than others, manifesting itself sometimes realistically, sometimes symboli- cally or allegorically, according to the styles of writing, the political agenda of authors, and their worldview in general. Most notably, Sufism plays a major role in the work of Egypt’s Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006), ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd viii 23/10/2012 17:16 series editor’s foreword | ix who has demonstrated time and again in his work that while Sufism may be viable as a means of personal salvation by withdrawal from society, it had no role to play in bringing about progressive social change. Other writers may have other views, but few could afford to ignore Sufism in their writing, considering its standing both in Arab/Muslim thought and popular belief and practice. Despite the above, the study of representations of Sufism in Arabic fic- tion, let alone other genres, has received little scholarly attention and remains a field wide open for researchers’ endeavour. The vast landscape needs to be surveyed, historical and socio-political connections established, develop- ments delineated, links with world trends identified, and the tools of relevant literary theory brought to bear on all that. Ziad Elmarsafy’s current volume, Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel, makes a much needed start on all these fronts through representative case studies of some of the most central exponents of Sufi thought in the contemporary Arabic novel. Rasheed El-Enany, Emeritus Professor of Modern Arabic Literature University of Exeter ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd ix 23/10/2012 17:16 Abbreviations CW = Complete Works / Al-Aʿmāl Al-Kāmila (various authors) EI = Encyclopaedia of Islam. Refers to articles in both the second (P. Bearman et al.) and third (Kate Fleet et al.) editions EM = Louis Massignon, Ecrits mémorables EQ = Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān FM = Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūªāt Al-Makkiyya GA = Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe Note on Transliteration and Translation I follow the IJMES system for the transliteration of Arabic names. For the authors studied in this work, however, I have relied on the spelling used in the extant translations into Western languages (mainly English), in order to make them more accessible for the general reader. I have followed the same policy with titles and characters, adopting them as they exist in the extant translations. If there is no English translation, I use the transliter- ated Arabic for the author’s name and title. For the sake of clarity, authors’ names are transliterated according to the IJMES system at first mention in the text (mainly in the introduction) and in the bibliography where neces- sary. All nouns and the definite article ‘Al’ are capitalised in Arabic titles and names. Some widespread proper names are transliterated according to their better-known form, hence Gamal Abd El-Nasser rather than Jamāl ʿAbd Al-Nā‚ir. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. Once again, for the sake of accessibility, translations of individual works (mainly English, some French) are listed in the bibliography. All translations from the Qurʾān are taken from The Qur’an: A New Translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). x ELMARSAFY 9780748641406 PRINT.indd x 23/10/2012 17:16 Acknowledgements irst and foremost, I wish to thank Professor Rasheed El-Enany, whose Finitiative and constant encouragement over the past three years made this book possible. The patient and professional support of the editorial and pro- duction teams at Edinburgh University Press was essential to keeping this pro- ject from derailing. The generous leave policy of the English Department at the University of York, coupled with a visiting appointment at the Université de Paris III–Sorbonne Nouvelle at the kind invitation of Professor Jean Bessière, gave me the time and resources necessary to get the project off the ground. The idea at the heart of this book began as a series of discussions with Gilles Ladkany, Daniel Rivet and Hamit Bozarslan at the Institut d’Etudes de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Miriam Cooke
    2012 miriam cooke Asian & Middle East Studies 222 Trent, Durham, NC 27708 919 6842312 [email protected] EDUCATION 1980 D.Phil., Arabic Literature, St. Antony's College, Oxford, England 1971 M.A. Honors, Arabic and Islamic Studies Edinburgh University, Scotland PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS 2012 spring Visiting Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, Dartmouth College 2010 fall Scholar in Residence, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar 2006 spring Visiting Professor at Islamic State University, Jakarta, Indonesia 2001-2004 Chair, Asian and African Languages and Literature (AALL), Duke 2000 spring Visiting Professor at Tunis I University 1996-99 Chair, Asian & African Languages & Literature (AALL) 1998 summer Visiting Professor at Bucharest University, Romania 1993 to date Professor, AALL 1988-94 Director, AALL 1987-93 Associate Professor, AALL 1981-87 Assistant Professor, Center for International Studies, Duke AWARDS AND HONORS 2012 Named Braxton Craven Distinguished Professor of Arab Cultures 2008-16 Board of Governors of the Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies 2006-7 Who’s Who of American Women 2003 Arts Council Playwrights and Screenwriters Competition, judge 2001-3 President of the Association of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies 2001 Women Claim Islam: Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1 1 2000 Vice-Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies award for Muslim Networks Trent Foundation award for Muslim Networks Workshop (spring 2001) 1997 Women and the War Story Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1995-6 Fulbright Scholarship in Syria - "The Politics of Cultural Production" 1994 North Carolina Humanities Council grant for Genocide Conference 1990 H.F. Guggenheim Consultancy for "Violence and Post-Colonial Islam" Opening the Gates. A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (co-edited with Margot Badran) First Prize: Chicago Women in Publishing Books of Contemporary Relevance Mellon Fellow at Gender and War Institute, Dartmouth College.
    [Show full text]
  • Egypt Under Pressure
    EGYPT UNDER PRESSURE A contribution to the understanding of economic, social, and cultural aspects of Egypt today BY Marianne Laanatza Gunvor Mejdell Marina Stagh Kari Vogt Birgitta Wistrand Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Uppsala 1986 TEE IMAGE OF EUROPE IN EGYPTIAN LITERATURE: TWO RECENT SHORT STORIES BY BANW TAHfR ON A RECURRENT THEME, Under the heading "This is the issue" "(trlka kiya al-qadlya) the Egyptian liberal philosopher Zaki Nagib Mahmud summarizes the principal question in Egyptian intellectual debate during the last 150 years in the epitome "what should be our attitude towards the West" (rnsdh: yakcnu mawqifun3 min al-gharb)' 1' The article is provoked by a contribution by Anis Mansur in the daily ~khb&ral-yaurn, in which he relates an encounter between some Egyptian writers, including himself and Ahmad Baha al-Din, and a visiting Russian poet to Egypt in the 1965's. The poet asks them about the issue which Xas most preoccupied Egyptian men of ietters, They were embarrassed by the realization that Egyptian writers (udabz) had no such comnom matter, writes Mansur, After some hesitation they find no better reply thai~!'sccialist . c* .c realism" (a%-ishtir2kiyys ai-wzql lyyaj, Exasperated by s~ch1ac.i. of inslght from some of the leading intellectuals of today, Zak~Kzgib Mahmud strongly asserts that the issue of haw to relate to the West, with all its implications, cnderlies the great controversies in modern Egyptian political and cultural life, He claims that distinctive dividing lines may be drawn all the way between two main tendencies: on the one hand those who reject the West (and all it stands for), on the other hand those who accept Western impulses, provided they are integrated lnto the national cultural tradition.
    [Show full text]
  • Literary Networks and the Making of Egypt's Nineties Generation By
    Writing in Cairo: Literary Networks and the Making of Egypt’s Nineties Generation by Nancy Spleth Linthicum A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in the University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Carol Bardenstein, Chair Associate Professor Samer Ali Professor Anton Shammas Associate Professor Megan Sweeney Nancy Spleth Linthicum [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9782-0133 © Nancy Spleth Linthicum 2019 Dedication Writing in Cairo is dedicated to my parents, Dorothy and Tom Linthicum, with much love and gratitude for their unwavering encouragement and support. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my committee for their invaluable advice and insights and for sticking with me throughout the circuitous journey that resulted in this dissertation. It would not have been possible without my chair, Carol Bardenstein, who helped shape the project from its inception. I am particularly grateful for her guidance and encouragement to pursue ideas that others may have found too far afield for a “literature” dissertation, while making sure I did not lose sight of the texts themselves. Anton Shammas, throughout my graduate career, pushed me to new ways of thinking that I could not have reached on my own. Coming from outside the field of Arabic literature, Megan Sweeney provided incisive feedback that ensured I spoke to a broader audience and helped me better frame and articulate my arguments. Samer Ali’s ongoing support and feedback, even before coming to the University of Michigan (UM), likewise was instrumental in bringing this dissertation to fruition.
    [Show full text]
  • World Literature Reading List
    WEST BLOOMFIELD HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Eleventh Grade Honors World Literature: Summer Reading Assignment 2019 Please complete the assignment during the summer. Assignment #1 Step A: Read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Winner of the PEN/ Hemingway Award Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard Award Shortlisted for the British Book Award - Debut of the Year A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Time, Oprah.com, Harper’s Bazaar, San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Esquire, Elle, Paste, Entertainment Weekly, the Skimm, PopSugar, Minneapolis Star Tribune, BuzzFeed, The Guardian, Financial Times Ghana, eighteenth century: two half-sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed— and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation. Assignment #2 Independent reading choice!!! This summer, I want you to choose a book (or more if you’d like to!) to read from which you will both find enjoyment and learn about another part of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Alia Mossallam 200810290
    The London School of Economics and Political Science Hikāyāt Sha‛b – Stories of Peoplehood Nasserism, Popular Politics and Songs in Egypt 1956-1973 Alia Mossallam 200810290 A thesis submitted to the Department of Government of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, November 2012 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 99,397 words (excluding abstract, table of contents, acknowledgments, bibliography and appendices). Statement of use of third party for editorial help I confirm that parts of my thesis were copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Naira Antoun. 2 Abstract This study explores the popular politics behind the main milestones that shape Nasserist Egypt. The decade leading up to the 1952 revolution was one characterized with a heightened state of popular mobilisation, much of which the Free Officers’ movement capitalized upon. Thus, in focusing on three of the Revolution’s main milestones; the resistance to the tripartite aggression on Port Said (1956), the building of the Aswan High Dam (1960- 1971), and the popular warfare against Israel in Suez (1967-1973), I shed light on the popular struggles behind the events.
    [Show full text]
  • Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals
    © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION The image in figure 1 is a screenshot of the hacking of the website of the Leba- nese Ministry of Energy and Water responsible for the country’s electricity in April 2012 by a group called Raise Your Voice, a self- proclaimed offshoot of the global hackers collective Anonymous.1 Protesting poor living conditions and in- adequate social services, the hackers not only crashed the government agency’s site but also substituted one text for another. Reenacting an electric cut, they transformed the cursor into a flashlight that needs to be moved around in order to light up an otherwise dark screen. This act of hacking defaces the ministry website through a textual and technological performance that involves viewers as active participants who need to move the cursor in order to reveal the text. But what is being exposed through this hacking? Is it the text itself, the reading practice directed toward it, or the failing nation-s tate unable to fulfill its duties vis- à- vis its citizens? What writing genre, aesthetics, and critique of power does the flashlight make legible? Figure 1. “Electricity is cut off.” Ministry of Energy and Water, April 16, 2012, http:// www.energyandwater.gov.lb/. For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Social Agents in the Translation Into English of the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz
    Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions. If you have discovered material in AURA which is unlawful e.g. breaches copyright, (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please read our Takedown Policy and contact the service immediately The Role of Social Agents in the Translation into English of the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz Vol. 1/2 Linda Ahed Alkhawaja Doctor of Philosophy ASTON UNIVERSITY April, 2014 ©Linda Ahed Alkhawaja, 2014 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. Thesis Summary Aston University The Role of Social Agents in the Translation into English of the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz Linda Ahed Alkhawaja Doctor of Philosophy (by Research) April, 2014 This research investigates the field of translation in an Egyptain context around the work of the Egyptian writer and Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz by adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological framework. Bourdieu’s framework is used to examine the relationship between the field of cultural production and its social agents. The thesis includes investigation in two areas: first, the role of social agents in structuring and restructuring the field of translation, taking Mahfouz’s works as a case study; their role in the production and reception of translations and their practices in the field; and second, the way the field, with its political and socio-cultural factors, has influenced translators’ behaviour and structured their practices.
    [Show full text]
  • Egypt's Culture Wars: Politics and Practice
    Egypt’s Culture Wars Egypt is the cultural centre of the Arab world and sets a lot of the intellectual agenda for the rest of the region. The strain between secular liberals, an authorit- arian state and Islamists is reaching boiling point in Egypt and mirrors to some extent similar pressures elsewhere in the Arab world. This ground-breaking work presents original research on cultural politics and battles in Egypt at the turn of the twenty-first century. It deconstructs the bound- aries between “high” and “low” culture, drawing on conceptual tools in cultural studies, translation studies and gender studies to analyse debates in the fields of literature, cinema, mass media and the plastic arts. Anchored in the Egyptian historical and social contexts and inspired by the influential work of Pierre Bour- dieu, it rigorously places these debates and battles within the larger framework of a set of questions about the relationship between the cultural and political fields in Egypt. Egypt’s Culture Wars is a valuable contribution to the often neglected and ignored subject of cultural politics and battles for representation in Egypt. Detailed and insightful, this innovative interdisciplinary volume allows us to understand what has been happening in the sphere of public debate in Egypt. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and students from the literary field, cultural studies, political science, Middle East studies, sociology and gender studies. Samia Mehrez is Professor at the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo, Egypt. Routledge advances in Middle East and Islamic studies 1 Iraqi Kurdistan Political development and emergent democracy Gareth R.
    [Show full text]
  • When East Meets West in Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis a Post
    Identity Quest: When East Meets West in Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis A Post-Colonial Reading Mona Kattaya, Ain Shams University, Egypt The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Dubai 2017 Official Conference Proceedings Abstract The cultural representation of the Western Other in modern Arabic fiction is a formidable body of texts that stretches over a span of almost one hundred years – from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present. Emerging out of the experience of colonization, most of these fictional narratives have asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial Other, thus emphasizing a discourse where the encounter between East and West, whether literal or metaphorical, has been presented in a series of deep rooted dichotomies of East/West, colonized/colonizer, slave/master, backward/civilized, bonded/free, etc. From this cultural output stands out Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis (2007). The winner of the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in March 2008, Sunset Oasis in a way continues the initial perceptions of the West in Arab fiction, but, more importantly, it, in other ways, contests them. This paper analyses the two main characters’ hybrid identities whose constructions expose what the post-colonial critic Homi Bhabha considers threats to authority in their revelation of colonial anxiety as well as anti-colonial resistance. The paper concludes that, in its decidedly holistic perspective, Bahaa Taher’s novel goes beyond the usual chaos and conflict of Eastern-Western encounters into spaces of understanding, equality, dialogue, and compatibility. Keywords: Bahaa Taher, Sunset Oasis, Hybridity, Identity, East, West. iafor The International Academic Forum www.iafor.org Introduction The fictional representation of the East-West encounter in post-colonial Arab novels is a formidable body of texts that has considered the theme of identity as one of its essential discussion.
    [Show full text]
  • Bahāʾ Ṭāhir's Al-Ḥubb Fī L-Manfā (Love in Exile)
    Love versus Political Commitment An Arab Intellectual’s Dilemma as Portrayed in Bahāʾ Ṭāhir’s al-Ḥubb fī l-Manfā (Love in Exile) Line Reichelt Føreland Thesis submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts in the field of Arabic language Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages Supervisor: Stephan Guth UNIVERSITY OF OSLO June 2011 I II Love versus Political Commitment: An Arab Intellectual’s Dilemma as portrayed in Bahā’ Ṭāhir’s al-Ḥubb fī l-Manfā (Love in Exile) The process a formerly committed intellectual has to go through in order to gain consciousness of his destiny in the post-idealistic, postmodern, globalized world. III © Line Reichelt Føreland 2011 Love versus Political Commitment: An Arab Intellectual‟s Dilemma as Portrayed in Bahā’ Ṭāhir‟s al-Ḥubb fī l-Manfā Line Reichelt Føreland http://www.duo.uio.no/ IV V Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... IX Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... X A note on translation and transliteration .................................................................................. XI 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Why al-Ḥubb fī l-Manfā? ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Sources ........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Commitment and Beyond: Reflections On/Of the Political in Arabic Literature Since the 1940S
    Friederike Pannewick and Georges Khalil together with Yvonne Albers: Commitment and Beyond: Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s Introduction: Tracks and Traces of Literary Commitment – On Iltizām as an Ongoing Intellectual Project eISBN: 978-3-95490-613-0 Copyright Das Digitalisat wird Ihnen von perspectivia.net, der Online- Publikationsplattform der Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland, zur Verfügung gestellt. Bitte beachten Sie, dass das Digitalisat urheberrechtlich geschützt ist. Erlaubt ist aber das Lesen, das Ausdrucken des Textes, das Herunterladen, das Speichern der Daten auf einem eigenen Datenträger soweit die vorgenannten Handlungen ausschließlich zu privaten und nicht-kommerziellen Zwecken erfolgen. Eine darüber hinausgehende unerlaubte Verwendung, Reproduktion oder Weitergabe einzelner Inhalte oder Bilder können sowohl zivil- als auch strafrechtlich verfolgt werden. Introduction: Tracks and Traces of Literary Commitment— On Iltizām as an Ongoing Intellectual Project Yvonne Albers, Georges Khalil, Friederike Pannewick If one day the people will to live Then destiny must reply; The darkness must disappear, And bonds must break.1 These are the lines of the poem “The Will to Live” (“Irādat al-ḥayāh”) written in 1933 by the Tunisian poet Abū al-Qāsim al-Shābbī (1909‒1934) to which the rallying chant of the popu- lar uprisings in the Arab world in 2011 responded: “The people want the fall of the re- gime/system” (“Al-shaʿb yurīd isqāṭ al-niẓām”). Regimes indeed fell and history is evolving. The euphoria sparked by the fall of authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt that year has now evaporated. Current developments in many countries of the region seem to be heading in different directions, towards greater fragmentation, sectarianism, and violence, witnessing a resurgence of the paradigms of the old order, such as the outworn dichotomy of authoritari- anism versus religious extremism.
    [Show full text]
  • Reply to Council Question
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Central Archive at the University of Reading The destinies of literary manuscripts: past present and future Article Accepted Version Sutton, D. C. (2014) The destinies of literary manuscripts: past present and future. Archives and Manuscripts, 42 (3). pp. 295- 300. ISSN 0157-6895 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2014.948559 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/37251/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from the work. To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2014.948559 Publisher: Taylor & Francis All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading's research outputs online THE DESTINIES OF LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS: PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE David C. Sutton The following essay is abridged and updated from a longer keynote address given on the occasion of the fiftieth birthday of the Beinecke Library, Yale University, in April 2013. The nature of literary manuscripts This esssay reviews the ways in which literary manuscripts may be considered to be archivally unique, as well as valuable in all senses of the word, and gives a cautious appraisal of their future in the next ten to twenty years. Literary manuscripts are not like other archives.
    [Show full text]