Awards

• Commended for Choice: Outstanding Academic Title 2014

Overview

Challenging prevalent conceptualizations of modernity—which treat it either as a Western ideology imposed by colonialism or as a universal narrative of progress and innovation—this study instead offers close readings of the simultaneous performances and contestations of modernity staged in works by authors such as Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Tayeb Salih, Hanan al-Shaykh, Hamdi Abu Golayyel, and Ahmad Alaidy. In dialogue with affect theory, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis, the book reveals these trials to be a violent and ongoing confrontation with and within modernity. In pointed and witty prose, El-Ariss bridges the gap between Nahda (the so-called Arab project of Enlightenment) and postcolonial and postmodern fiction.

Full Product Details

9780823251711

Table of Contents

Reviews

Trials of Arab Modernity offers a refreshing approach to the field of modern Arabic literature both with the scope of its argument and the richness of its interventions. The book not only discusses the role of the 'nahda', but it does so against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, new media, affect theory and Arabic literary history. Michael Allan, University of Oregon ... a sharp and witty reading of great warmth and appeal that brings the reader close to its subject without surrendering to hasty generalizations. Muhsin al-Musawi, author of Islam on the Street and The Postcolonial Arabic Novel

<br> Trials of Arab Modernity offers a refreshing approach to the field of modern Arabic literature both with the scope of its argument and the richness of its interventions. The book not only discusses the role of the 'nahda', but it does so against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, new <br> media, affect theory and Arabic literary history. -Michael Allan, University of Oregon<p><br>. . . a sharp and witty reading of great warmth and appeal that brings the reader close to its subject without surrendering to hasty generalizations. -Muhsin al-Musawi, author of Islam on the Street and The Postcolonial Arabic Novel<p><br>

Author Information

Tarek El-Ariss is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, Austin.

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