Arab Studies Journal Announces Spring 2017 Issue

We are proud to announce the twenty-fifth issue of the Arab Studies Journal is now available at Tadween Publishing! 

In this issue, we are honored to feature Ghenwa Hayek's “Making Ordinary: Recuperating the Everyday in Post-2005 Beirut Novels.” This article examines a public replete with memories of violence, and how they find greater meaning in experiencing the "ordinariness" of regular life through movies, books, and art, than any "extraordinary" renditions of war and sacrifice. In it, she finds that the ordinary middle is hard to reach for the Lebanese, who have to confront the complexities of post-war life in subtle ways that continue to inhibit their ability to move forward. Geoffrey P. Levin's “Arab Students, American Jewish Insecurities, and the End of Pro-Arab Politics in Mainstream America, 1952-1973” deals with quite a different historical phenomenon. He traces the activism of the Organization of Arab Students in the United States, and how they moved from a place of mainstream Arab nationalism to anti-imperial radicalism, which was ultimately marginalized through the efforts of Zionist and Jewish student groups. The narrative of this group continues to have significance until today, wherein Arab activism in the West is still viewed with suspicion, under careful surveillance of the FBI and CIA.

We are also privileged to be featuring a special section in this issue that delves deep in analyzing "the state in Lebanon." This section features a myriad of pieces that explore the status of public spaces and the social politics that govern the everyday affairs of Lebanese people. Jamil Mouawad and Hannes Bauman write on this issue in two related articles: "In Search of the Lebanese State" and "Wayn al-Dawla?: Locating the Lebanese State in Social Theory." Dylan Baun reaches back into the history of social space in his article "The Gemmayzeh Incident of 1949: Conflict over Physical and Symbolic Space in Beirut." The final article, "On Deference and Benevolence: The Politics of Parking in Beirut," by Samar Kanafani, completes the analysis of the critical and understudied issue of the social ecology in Lebanon. 

Following these groundbreaking articles are seven thematic reviews that help shed light on a variety of topics facing contemporary Lebanon, and provide a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding such issues as its domestic politics, its economic affairs, the Lebanese diaspora, amongst many other matters and nations of interest. 

Enjoy a final section of select reviews that eruditely pinpoint the flaws and strengths of many works of literature written by the Middle East. See the Table of Contents below and order a copy or subscription to the Arab Studies Journal today!

 

T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S 

ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL
VOL. XXV, NO. 1
 
Editor's Note
 

ARTICLES

Making Ordinary: Recuperating the Everyday in Post-2005 Beirut Novels
Ghenwa Hayek
 
Arab Students, American Jewish Insecurities, and the End of Pro-Arab Politics in Mainstream America, 1952-1973
Geoffrey P. Levin

 

SPECIAL SECTION: THE STATE IN LEBANON

Section Introduction:
In Search of the Lebanese State
Jamil Mouawad and Hannes Bauman
 
Wayn al-Dawla?:Locating the Lebanese State in Social Theory
Jamil Mouawad and Hannes Bauman
 
The Gemmayzeh Incident of 1949: Conflict over Physical and Symbolic Space in Beirut
Dylan Baun

On Deference and Benevolence: The Politics of Parking in Beirut
Samar Kanafani
 
THEMATIC REVIEWS
 
The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840–1920
by Carol Hakim
Reviewed by Joan Chaker
 
Interlopers of Empire: The Lebanese Diaspora in Colonial French West Africa
by Andrew Arsan
Reviewed by Reem Bailony
 
Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon
by Melani Cammett
Reviewed by Paul Kingston
 
The Shi‘ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah’s Islamists
by Rula Jurdi Abisaab and Malek Abisaab
Reviewed by Linda Sayed
 
The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon
by Bassel F. Salloukh, Rabie Barakat, Jinan S. Al-Habbal, Lara W. Khattab, and Shoghig Mikaelian
Reviewed by Maya Mikdashi
 
Spheres of Intervention: US Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon, 1967–1976
by James R. Stocker
Reviewed by Jeffrey G. Karam
 
Yusif Beidas: Imbaraturiyyat Intra wa-Hitan al-Mal fi Lubnan [Yusif Beidas: The Intra Empire and Money Sharks in Lebanon]
by Kamal Dib
Reviewed by Hicham Safieddine
 
REVIEWS
 
Making History in Iran: Education, Nationalism, and Print Culture
by Farzin Vejdani
Reviewed by Rustin Zarkar
 
Iranian Film and Persian Fiction
by M. R. Ghanoonparvar
Reviewed by Samad Alavi
 
In the Shadow of World Literature: Sites of Reading in Colonial Egypt
by Michael Allan
Reviewed by Elizabeth M. Holt

 

REVIEW ESSAY

 
Between the World and Algeria: International Histories of the Algerian War of Independence
by Arthur Asseraf
 
Decolonizing Christianity: Religion and the End of Empire in France and Algeria
by Darcie Fontaine
 
The Battle of Algeria: Sovereignty, Health Care, and Humanitarianism
by Jennifer Johnson
 
Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order
by Jeffrey James Byrne