ARABIC-L: LIT: New Issue of Al-Adab

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 03 Feb 1999
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1) Subject: New Issue of Al-Adab

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1)
Date: 03 Feb 1999
From: dar eladab <d_aladab at cyberia.net.lb>
Subject: New Issue of Al-Adab

AL-ADAB 1-2/99: CRITIQUE OF ARAB MODERNISM; THE BOMBARDMENT OF IRAQ AND
ANGLO-AMERICAN POETRY ON THE GULF WAR; INTELLECTUALS AND AUTHORITY IN
EGYPT

Al-Adab commences its 47th year with "A Critique of ARAB Modernism," a
sequel to its file in the #11-12/98 issue critiquing Modernism in
general and an application of those findings to the Arab world.
Mohammad Sayyid Rasas argues that none of the 3 schools of Arab
modernism -- i.e. nationalism, liberalism, and Marxism -- has been as
productive as traditional value-systems because none was developed in an
Arab social structure. Gregoire Merchou shows how modernism's slogans
were transformed by the nationalist state and its coterie of elites into
a tool for effacing the potentials of an indigenous consciousness, and
he suggests that the polarization between fundamentalists and modernists
is, therefore, superficial and self-destructive.  Ahmad Barqawi dwells
on the defects of two versions of Arab modernist intellectual discourse:
Arab nationalism and Arab Marxism; he finds that the former contained
from the outset the seeds of despotism and that the latter mechanically
adopted the Russian case-study and so never really applied dialectical
thinking to the Arab context.  Shamseddine al-Kilani explicates the
trail-blazing work of Syrian thinker Burhan Ghalyun in this field.  To
be followed up with a "critique of the critique" by Georges Tarabishi,
Abdallah Bilqaziz, and others in the #3-4/99 issue.

The bombardment of Iraq which began last December is dealt with in three
articles, one by the editor, Samah Idriss, "Up from the Grave," another
by Faysal Darraj, "May God Bless America and Arab Impotence," and a
third by Baghdad-based Iraqi intellectual Majid al-Samurrai, "70 Hours
of Death, 70 Hours of Life." Also included is a selection of
Anglo-American poetry translated and presented by Saadi Simawe, offering
to Arab readers for the first time a glimpse of how Anglo-American
dissidents responded to the Gulf War (1991).

Commencing Al-Adab's new series introducing Arab readers to the critical
thinking of African-Americans past and present is a
translation of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham
Prison."  This series will encourage the application of
lessons from African-American oppositional experience and creativity to
the current socio-political situation in the Arab world.

This issue also features an article by Sabri Hafez comparing the two
waves of intellectual migration from the Arab world to the West, that of
Al-Nahda (Renaissance) and that of Al-Nift (oil).  Salah Fadl discusses
the relationship between intellectuals and the religious/political
authority in Egypt, using the examples of Taha Hussein, Najib Mahfuz,
and Louis Awad.  Three literary studies are included dealing with the
works of Nabil Sulayman, Ibrahim Dargawthi, and Mansour Fahmi, as well
as Shawqi Biza`a's regular review section, dealing this time with recent
books by Mahmoud Darwish, Huda Barakat, and Gabriella Mistral.

TO ACQUIRE A COPY of this issue, please contact Dar al-Adab by e-mail at
the following addresses: kidriss at cyberia.net.lb or
d_aladab at cyberia.net.lb. Each issue with postage by airmail costs US$13
(or equivalent in your local currency) which can be paid by money-order,
check, credit card, or bank transfer (Dar al-Adab at the Arab Bank,
Verdun Branch, Beirut, #338-756059-810-1).  Payment should be sent to
Dar al-Adab, P.O. Box 11-4123, Beirut, Lebanon.

SUBSCRIPTIONS to Al-Adab, a 104-page, bimonthly Arabic-language journal,
are available for $75 for individuals and $100 for institutions, postage
by registered mail included.

BACK ISSUES and bound back volumes are also available.  Please contact
the Subscriptions Manager, Kirsten Scheid Idriss
(kidriss at cyberia.net.lb), for more information.

** Please notify us by e-mail of your order prior to sending payment.  

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End of Arabic-L: 03 Feb 1999