Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

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. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab is a research fellow at the German Orient Institute in Beirut. She has studied in Beirut and Fribourg, Switzerland, and has taught in Lebanon at the American University of Beirut and at the University of Balamand, and in the United States at Columbia University and Yale University. She is the author of The Theory of Social Action in the Schutz-Parsons Debate. Title Contemporary Arab thought: cultural critique in comparative perspective Columbia University Press Author Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab Publisher Columbia University Press, 2010 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized 25 Jul 2011 ISBN 023114489X, 9780231144896 Length 496 pages Subjects Philosophy › Movements › Critical Theory Civilization, Arab Civilization, Arab - 20th century Civilization, Arab/ 20th century Criticism Criticism (Philosophy) Criticism - Arab countries Criticism/ Arab countries History / Civilization Literary Criticism / General Philosophy / Criticism Philosophy / General Philosophy / Movements / Critical Theory Philosophy / Political Religion / Islam / General Religion / Islam / History