The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual: Prophecy, Exile and the Nation

Zeina Halabi

ISBN 10: 1474429009 / ISBN 13: 9781474429009

Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2018

About this Item

. . 2018. Reprint. Paperback. . . . .

Seller Inventory # V9781474429009

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual: Prophecy, Exile and the Nation
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474429009
• ISBN 13: 9781474429009
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In this book Zeina G. Halabi examines the figure of the intellectual as prophet, national icon, and exile in contemporary Arabic literature and film. Staging a comparative dialogue with writers and critics such as Elias Khoury, Edward Said, Jurji Zaidan, and Mahmoud Darwish, Halabi focuses on new articulations of loss, displacement, and memory in works by Rabee Jaber, Elia Suleiman, Rawi Hage, Rashid al-Daif, and Seba al-Herz. She argues that the ambivalence and disillusionment with the role of the intellectual in contemporary representations operate as a productive reclaiming of the ‘political’ in an allegedly apolitical context. The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual offers the critical tools to understand the evolving relations between the intellectual and power, and the author and the text in the hitherto uncharted contemporary era.

About the Author

Zeina G. Halabi is Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature at the American University of Beirut. She specializes in modern Arabic literature with particular interest in questions of loss, mourning, and dissidence in contemporary literature and visual culture. She has authored articles on the shifting notion of political commitment in the writings of canonical and emerging Arab writers.