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

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.

Author: Zeina G. Halabi
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 06/04/2018
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9781474429009
ISBN10: 1474429009
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Books & Reading
- Literary Collections | Middle Eastern
- Religion | Islam | History

About the Author

Zeina G. Halabi is Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She specialises in contemporary literature, music and film with particular interest in questions of loss, dissidence and political commitment.