Challenging prevalent conceptualizations of modernity—which treat it either as a Western ideology imposed by colonialism or as a universal narrative of progress and innovation—this study instead offers close readings of the simultaneous performances and contestations of modernity staged in works by authors such as Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Tayeb Salih, Hanan al-Shaykh, Hamdi Abu Golayyel, and Ahmad Alaidy. In dialogue with affect theory, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis, the book reveals these trials to be a violent and ongoing confrontation with and within modernity. In pointed and witty prose, El-Ariss bridges the gap between Nahda (the so-called Arab project of Enlightenment) and postcolonial and postmodern fiction.
| ISBN: | 9780823251728 |
| Publication date: | 15th April 2013 |
| Author: | Tarek ElAriss |
| Publisher: | Fordham University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 248 pages |
| Genres: |
Literature: history and criticism |