Can Freedom Be Unlimited?: Examples of Censorship in Middle Eastern Societies in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Bonner Asienstudien)

Hardcover, 266 pages, NOT ex-library. Book looks unread, clean and bright throughout with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Issued without a dust jacket. -- This volume of edited articles presents the scholarly results of a German-Arab partnership project, funded for a two-year period by the German Academic Exchange Service (2013–2014). The idea was to establish a working relationship between the Higher Institute for Arts Criticism at the Academy of Arts in Egypt (later: The Centre for Civilization Studies and Dialogue of Cultures at Cairo University) and the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Bonn University. The scientific focus was on the dynamics of dissidence and censorship in Egypt from the Nahda to the Arab Spring. Under the leadership of Dr. Haggag Ali (Cairo) and Prof. Dr. Stephan Conermann (and later Prof. Dr. Christine Schirrmacher as well), an interdisciplinary group of young researchers was established. These scholars presented and discussed individual projects and relevant topics during three productive and successful workshops. It was these workshops that eventually led to this joint publication. -- Contents: Introduction; Freedom or Censorship: Opposites? Discourses on Freedom, Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Belief in Middle Eastern Societies in the 20th Century / Christine Schirrmacher; Censorship in Egypt: A Historical Overview / Emad Abou-Ghazi; The 'Urabi Revolt: Censoring the Modem Egypt of the 1880s / Ghada Alakhdar; Translation of Western Literature and Self-Censorship in Egypt at the End of the 19th Century / Inas Saleh; The Limits of Doubt in Literary History: The Case of Taha Husain / Haggag Ali; Censorship of Public Festivals and Mawlids in Egypt, 1930-1950 / Patrick Kane; Islam as the Golden Mean? Freedom as Defined, Justified yet Restricted in the Egyptian Wasatiyya Discourse / Carsten Polanz; Censorship in the Late Ottoman Empire / Hayrettin Aydin; Self-censorship as a Coping Strategy for Engaging in Society: Some Reflections on the Changing Worlds of Iranian Women at the End of the 19th and Beginning of the 20th Centuries / Sarah Dusend.…