Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective

by Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab

In the last third of the twentieth century, the Arab intellectual and political scene polarized between totalizing doctrines―nationalist, Marxist, and religious―and radical critique. Arab thinkers were reacting to the disenchanting experience of postindependence and a widespread sense of malaise, as well as to authoritarianism, intolerance, injustice, failed development, and successive defeats by Israel. The foundational account of these responses, Contemporary Arab Thought illuminates the relationship between cultural and political critique in the work of major Arab thinkers. Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab also connects Arab debates to the postcolonial issues of Latin America and Africa, revealing the shared struggles of different regions.

Since its first publication in 2009, this book has stood as the foremost account of contemporary Arab debates on culture, philosophy, modernity, tradition, identity, and liberation. It is widely used in Middle Eastern studies courses, and it has become a classic in the field of Arab intellectual history. Contemporary Arab Thought now features an extensive new introduction that reconsiders post-1967 Arab intellectual history in light of the 2011 uprisings and the upheavals that have occurred over the intervening years. Kassab critically reflects on the book’s arguments and the responses it has provoked, and she surveys the new preoccupations that have emerged in Arab debates since 2011. As crises again overtake the Middle East, this landmark work continues to offer indispensable insight into the richness of contemporary Arab thought.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Islam, Middle East

600 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sara Salem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, especially the last chapter where she compared Latin American, African and Arab postcolonial thought. However, although she appears to be presenting comparisons of different thinkers, her own biases often reveal themselves, especially with regards to liberalism and liberal democracy. It is made very clear in the last few pages where she used Sartre's critique of negritude as the measurement against which thinkers like Fanon had to respond. Why not reverse this? Why did Fanon have to defend negritude, thus centering Sartre's critique instead of negritude thought itself?

[Ibrahim Alhouti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very great book, but it is too long. To be continued later.