Arab Studies Quarterly

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Latest documents

• Decolonizing English Literature Departments At Arab Universities

  Education in the Arab world is in need of a revolution, and this revolutionary transformation is inevitably and intricately linked to the production, ordering, and dissemination of revolutionary, anti-colonial knowledge. This article emphasizes the urgency for decolonizing education, specifically English literature departments at Arab universities. Many thinkers have documented the connection between literature, culture, and imperialism on the one hand (Gauri Viswanathan’s Masks of Conquest, 1989 and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, 1993) and literature, culture, and resistance on the other hand (Fanon, Kanafani, Cabral, Said, and others who wrote about zero point epistemology). While there have been some decolonization efforts in different parts of the world, even at Ivy League institutions (Cornell University, for example), Arab universities ironically maintain a very rigid, government accredited English and American literary curriculum with no attempt or intention at decolonizing these colonial era curricula. This article interrogates the aims behind maintaining a purely English (and American) literary curricula, especially as the Arab region continues to undergo the most violent and aggressive forms of Western intervention, which has led to massive destruction of Arab state infrastructures, the loss of Palestine in 1948, the dissolution of the social fabric of Arab societies and thousands of deaths in the past two decades. Against this destructive Western agenda, a constructive, awareness raising impulse embedded in a literature/culture of resistance is in order. It is high time that Arab universities decolonize their English literature departments, a necessary transformation that entails, to quote the title of an essay by Walter D. Mignolo, “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom” (2009).

• The Axis Of Resistance And Imperialism In West Asia
• Editor’s Note
• Syria Since 1990: Dimensions Of Conflict

  This article addresses Syria’s political economic development since 1990 with its domestic and regional dimensions; it also examines Syria’s geopolitical importance to Bilad al-Sham. The article illustrates how the US imperial wars and plans impacted Syria and the wider Middle East region; furthermore, the article examines the motives behind the US imperialist plans to destroy Syria. It argues that the collapse of the USSR in 1990 facilitated US supremacy in the world and enabled it to expand even more. The article tackles the following questions: Why is Syria regarded as central to the Middle East region? What is the US plan for Syria? Does the US Syria policy have anything to do with the Palestine issue? Has the ongoing Syrian crisis (since 2011) changed Syria’s political orientation?

• Books Received 2021–2022
• Books in Brief
• Barbosa, Gustavo. The Best of Hard Times: Palestinian Refugee Masculinities in Lebanon
• Dancing On The Edge Of Oblivion
• Contents
• Wermenbol, Grace. A Tale of Two Narratives: The Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Israeli-Palestinian Battle of Memories

Featured documents

• Dancing On The Edge Of Oblivion
• The Axis Of Resistance And Imperialism In West Asia
• Decolonizing English Literature Departments At Arab Universities

  Education in the Arab world is in need of a revolution, and this revolutionary transformation is inevitably and intricately linked to the production, ordering, and dissemination of revolutionary, anti-colonial knowledge. This article emphasizes the urgency for decolonizing education, specifically...

• Egypt Under SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood: The Triangle of Counter-Revolution

  This article seeks to examine the dynamics of counter-revolution in Egypt following the January 2011 revolution and their corresponding impact on the path of democratization in post-Mubarak Egypt. It argues that the popular calls for change that followed the Egyptian revolution have fallen...

• Artistic Fallout from the July 2006 War: Momentum, Mediation, and Mediatization

  A decade after the end of Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, I spotlight the hitherto under-researched literary portrayals of the conflict. Following an overview of the immediate and (then-) innovative media tools and techniques used to capture its momentum—blogging, video-making, and online comics—and...

• Political Engagement: The Palestinian Confessional Genre

  The personal struggle and creative achievement of Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003), one of the most celebrated poets in the Arab world, signify the plight of the Palestinian people in the twentieth century. Her autobiography, A Mountainous Journey, An Autobiography, integrates the personal and collective...

• Mechanisms of Authoritarian Rule in Bahrain

  This investigation identifies the different elements in Bahraini society and government that indicate the existence of authoritarian rule and the mechanisms which perpetuate it. Hardliners in the royal family have strategically obstructed democratization in the country by controlling Bahrain's...

• Tales of a Square: The Production and Transformation of Political Space in the Egyptian (Counter)Revolution

  This article looks into the meaning of Tahrir Square before, during, and after the January 25 revolution. We employ Lefebvre's conceptual triad of space to understand how space is not merely a physical form, but also the product of relations between natural and social objects in this space. To...

• Divided Mediterranean, Divided World: The Influence of Arabic on Medieval Italian Poetry

  Divided Mediterranean, Divided World: The Influence of Arabic on Medieval Italian Poetry describes the significant role played by Arabic and Islamic poetry, legends, tales, and philosophy on major Italian poets in the Middle Ages in spite of the denial of some of the poets themselves of such an...

• All Quiet on the Western Front: The Outcome of Israel's March 2015 Elections and the Peace Process

  The March 17, 2015 parliamentary elections were held roughly two years after the previous elections. According to the results, the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formed the new government. It controls 61 parliamentary seats, and is a narrow, right-wing and ultra-Orthodox government ...