Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction : a critique of Arab nationalism -- 2. The trials and tribulations of the poet Fu'ad al-Khatib : a biographical essay on the origins of Arab nationalism -- 3. Holding up the mirror : imperialism and the poetics of cultural pan-Arabism -- 3.1. Saladin the Victor : national saints, great men, and the rise of the individual -- 3.2. From the glory of conquest to paradise lost : al-Andalus in Arab historical consciousness -- 4. Of kings and cavemen : museums and nationalist museology in twentieth century Egypt -- 5. Damascus transfers : dead bodies and their translocal meanings -- 6. Nearly victorious : the art of staging Arab military prowess -- 7. Arab nationalism, fascism, and the Jews -- 8. Epilogue and conclusion : broken narratives.

Arab nationalism has been one of the dominant ideologies in the Middle East and North Africa since the early twentieth century. However, a clear definition of Arab nationalism, even as a subject of scholarly inquiry, does not yet exist. 'Arab Nationalism' sheds light on cultural expressions of Arab Nationalism and the sometimes contradictory meanings attached to it in the process of identity formation in the modern world. It presents nationalism as an experiencable set of identity markers - in stories, visual culture, narratives of memory and struggles with ideology, sometimes in culturally sophisticated forms, sometimes in utterly vulgar forms of expression. Drawing upon various case studies, the book transcends a conventional history that reduces nationalism in the Arab lands to a pattern of political rise and decline. It offers a glimpse at ways in which Arabs have constructed an identifiable shared national culture, and it critically dissects conceptions about Arab nationalism as an easily graspable secular and authoritarian ideology modelled on Western ideas and visions of modernity. This book offers an entirely new portrayal of nationalism and a crucial update to the field, and as such, is indispensable reading for students, scholars and policymakers looking to gain a deeper understanding of nationalism in the Arab world.

Peter Wien presents a provocative discussion on the history of Iraq and the growth of nationalism during the 1930s and early 1940s. He deconstructs the established view that a large proportion of the nationalist movement in Iraq during this period was heavily influenced by Nazi Germany, arguing that the admiration for Germany was highly nuanced, and only rarely translated into admiration for Nazism. National unity and patriotism were important, but models of leadership were overwhelmingly based on Iraqis and not Hitler. Analyzing the activities of the Iraqi youth and Jewish Iraqis, Iraqi Arab

This book provides a provocative discussion on the history of Iraq and the growth of nationalism during the 1930s and early 1940s and argues against the established view that the nationalist movement in Iraq during this period was heavily influenced by Na.

This roundtable is the product of a conference on tribalism in the Modern Middle East held at the University of Maryland in College Park in early May 2019. In two days of scholarly exchange, the participants addressed questions on the reality of tribal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and its impact on politics and society. Most of the specialists who participated in the conference are also contributors in this forum. To keep the discussion concise, the case studies focus on the Arab East – Syria, Jordan, and Iraq – as well as Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Building on the findings and reflections shared in College Park, the contributors responded to the following prompt as a point of departure for their essays:
For cultural, intellectual, political, and arguably even most social historians, tribes remain an enigma. As an ideal-type, the tribe seems to be all that the modern state is not: it defies positive law, rational administrative structures, equal citizenship based on individual rights and duties, and, still, in some cases, sovereignty based on fixed territorial boundaries. As a non-state, the tribe seems to be, on the other hand, the most enduring socio-political structure of human history. It is a kind of substrate, or a hetero-stratum of social organization at least in Middle Eastern societies. Its position as such seems even more pronounced in today's period of state disintegration and instability. What is the place of tribes in modern society, how do they relate to the modern state? How can what is seemingly an atavism of pre-modern times still have currency in today's world?The responses share the perception that tribes are not the antithesis of the modern state or of progress in the region. Researchers and politicians alike should take them into account in their analyses of modernization processes. They offer meaningful identities and forms of organization across the region and enjoy influence and power.

"Relocating Arab Nationalism" locates various representations of nationalism in the Arab world in new and hitherto neglected contexts. The project was first conceived in a conversation among some of the contributing authors about the validity of nationalism as a research topic in a seemingly postnationalist period in the Middle East. This conversation turned into a panel at the 2007 MESA conference in Montreal as an attempt to contribute to a further shift of perspective in the study of Arab nationalism away from the realm of theory and politics toward that of cultural history. The articles in this volume therefore trace the contours of multiple imaginary Pan-Arab spaces between the Atlantic Ocean and the Tigris river, inquiring into the movements of people, terms, and ideas between physical locations and in time. The space is imagined but experienced; the people who moved in it were sometimes excited about its promises and sometimes disappointed about its corruption and containment. Such experiences are the focal points of the articles. They ask whether and in what ways a virtual Pan-Arab community transcending the borders of nation–states ever existed. They also present the multitude of national narratives that were at work—and more often than not in conflict—inside the boundaries of nation–states. The authors do not see Arab nationalism as first and foremost a political agenda of unification and cooperation but rather focus on the roots, establishment, and evolution of imaginative, symbolic, or "lived" ties between people(s) who claimed to belong to an Arab national community, or tried to claim space for dissident minorities through counterhegemonic narratives. Case studies from Algerian, Moroccan, Syro-Palestinian, and Iraqi contexts from the interwar to the postindependence periods investigate the ways these ties of community were established beyond the rhetoric of textbooks and political speeches.