The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Literature and Culture Amara and the 2011 Revolution

by A. El-Desouky, Ayman

• ISBN13: 9781137392435
• ISBN10: 1137392436
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-11-14
• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot

Summary

The challenges of social cohesion and the radical possibilities of solidaristic action are among the most pressing issues on the global scene today. The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Language and Culture argues for the need for a localized and culturally nuanced conceptual language with which to re-conceive the radical possibilities that have been unleashed with the recent social movements since 2011. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the book investigates representations of 'the people' in intellectual and political discourses. There has been much discussion of the intellectual's relation to power, but what is the intellectual's relation to 'the people'? Are 'the people' always spoken for, or do they also speak and in speaking produce their own knowledge? Focusing on the case of the Egyptian revolution, the author offers the specifically Egyptian cultural practice of amara as a populist aesthetic of resonance and an ethic of solidarity.

Author Biography

Ayman A. El-Desouky is Senior Lecturer in Modern Arabic and Comparative Literature and Founding Chair of the Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS, 2009-2012) at SOAS, University of London, UK. He has lectured at the University of Texas at Austin (1993-1995), the Johns Hopkins University (1995-1996) and at Harvard University (1996-2002) before he moved to London. He is currently preparing a book-length study on Figuring the Sacred in the Modern Arabic Novel.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Intellectuals, Representation, Connective Agency

PART I: THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE QUEST FOR AMARA

1. Amara: Concept, Cultural Practice and Aesthetic

2. Signature or Cartouche? Dilemmas of the Egyptian Intellectual

PART II: THE PEOPLE AND THE AMARA OF CONNECTIVE AGENCY

3. The People Already Know: Positionality of the Intellectual, Connective Agency and Cultural Memory

4. The Amara on the Square: Some Reflections Post 25 January 2011

Postscript: I?na al-ma?riyyin and al-sha?b: The Untranslatabilities of Conceptual Languages

Bibliography

Index