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This book explores the development of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from a liberation movement to a national authority, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Based on intensive fieldwork in the West Bank, Gaza and Cairo, Nigel Parsons analyzes Palestinian internal politics and their institutional-building by looking at the development of the PLO. Drawing on interviews with leading figures in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, delegates to the negotiations with Israel, and the Palestinian political opposition, it is a timely account of the Israel/Palestine conflict from a Palestinian political perspective.
Traces the development of the modern Arabic novel from the 1960s to the present.
The volume contains 26 contributions to literature, philosophy, linguistics and epigraphy in Islamic culture, ranging from pre-Islamic poetry to contemporary prose, from the Ihwan as-Safa to the theology of Mawdudi, from lexicography to epigraphy. These papers were read at the Eighteenth International Congress of the Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, organized by the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) from 3 to 10 September 1996. A second volume of proceedings, that appears along with this one (OLA 86), is more concerned with questions of actuality and political organisation, including Christian minorities in the Arab world, in their relation to the Muslim environment. As such the two volumes put together, will provide to the world of learning, we may say, an overall picture of the current scientific investigations about Islamic culture and society.
This interdisciplinary volume of essays studies human rights in political prison literature, while probing the intersections of suffering, politics, and aesthetics in an interliterary and intercultural context. As the first book to explore the concept of global aesthetics in political prison narratives, it demonstrates how literary insight enhances the study of human rights. Covering varied geographical and geopolitical regions, this collection encourages comparative analyses and cross-cultural understanding. Seeking to interrogate linguistic, structural, and cultural constructions of the political prison experience, it highlights the literary aspects without losing sight of the political an...
This edition includes new material on the Arabic novel up to 1993. It is a survey of the Arabic novel and its development from its beginnings in the 19th century until today. It traces the origin, early cultivation and the mature period after World War II of the Arabic novel.
The November 1970 coup that brought Hafiz al-Asad to power fundamentally transformed cultural production in Syria. A comprehensive intellectual, ideological, and political project—a Ba'thist cultural revolution—sought to align artistic endeavors with the ideological interests of the regime. The ensuing agonistic struggle pitted official aesthetics of power against alternative modes of creative expression that could evade or ignore the effects of the state. With this book, Max Weiss offers the first cultural and intellectual history of Ba'thist Syria, from the coming to power of Hafiz al-Asad, through the transitional period under Bashar al-Asad, and continuing up through the Syria War. R...
Praise for The Long War for Freedom "An extremely important book. The Long War for Freedom finally presents to the Western world an in-depth portrait of those 'small voices' in the Arab world waging the most critical battle of the twenty-first century--the battle for the soul of the Middle East. No one with any interest in the struggle for economic and political reform in the Arab world can afford to neglect this penetrating and provocative work, which lays bare both the importance and the great difficulty of helping the Arab world to transform itself." --Kenneth Pollack, author of The Threatening Storm and The Persian Puzzle
Once at the center of one of the world's most ancient civilizations, Syria has seen its share of turmoil. Occupied by many empires throughout its history, Syria became part of the vast Ottoman Empire in 1516. Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Syria was put under French mandate by the League of Nations. It became independent in 1946, but continued to experience political instability until Hafez Assad gained power in a bloodless military coup on November 13, 1970. Since then, Syria has played a part in the Arab conflict in Israel and continued involvement in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs. Assad led the country for 30 years until his death in 2000. His son, Bashar, then became president and is credited with leading the country into the 21st century. However, Syria's alliances with violent Islamic military groups and Iran and its pursuit of advanced nuclear weapon capabilities have resulted in the United States placing sanctions on the country. In Syria, learn the storied history of this country that continues to be a major player in the Middle East and its politics.
Since the uprisings of 2010 and 2011, it has often been assumed that the politics of the Arab-speaking world is dominated, and will continue to be dominated, by orthodox Islamic thought and authoritarian politics. Challenging these assumptions, Line Khatib explores the current liberal movement in the region, examining its activists and intellectuals, their work, and the strengths and weaknesses of the movement as a whole. By investigating the underground and overlooked actors and activists of liberal activism, Khatib problematizes the ways in which Arab liberalism has been dismissed as an insignificant sociopolitical force, or a mere reaction to Western formulations of liberal politics. Instead, she demonstrates how Arab liberalism is a homegrown phenomenon that has influenced the politics of the region since the nineteenth century. Shedding new light on an understudied movement, Khatib provokes a re-evaluation of the existing literature and offers new ways of conceptualizing the future of liberalism and democracy in the modern Arab world.