Culture and Hegemony in the Colonial Middle East (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History)

This work is a study of the nature and origin of nationality and modern social ideals in the Middle East, particularly Egypt, in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Bringing together writings on political and social reform with literary works, Noorani challenges dominant assumptions about the emergence of modernity. It shows that while nationalist, liberal, and democratic ideals emerged in the Middle East under European influence, these ideals were nevertheless created out of existing cultural values by reformers and intellectuals. The central element of this process, the book argues, was the transformation of virtue into nationality. Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 1 Sovereign Virtue and the Emergence of Nationality......Page 34 2 The Death of the Hero and the Birth of Bourgeois Class Status......Page 60 3 Order, Agency, and the Economy of Desire: Islamic Reformism and Arab Nationalism......Page 82 4 The Moral Transformation of Femininity and the Rise of the Public–Private Distinction in Colonial Egypt......Page 118 5 Fiction, Hegemony, and Aesthetic Citizenship......Page 160 6 Excess, Rebellion, and Revolution: Egyptian Modernity in the Trilogy......Page 182 Epilogue......Page 220 Notes......Page 224 Bibliography......Page 246 G......Page 254 N......Page 255 Z......Page 256 Sovereign virtue and the emergence of nationality Classical virtue and sovereign authority Classical virtue and collective sovereignty The death of the hero and the birth of bourgeois class publicity Order, agency, and the economy of desire : Islamic reformism and Arab nationalism The political economy of tyranny and enslavement : al-Kawakibi The nation without qualities : Sati' al-Husri The moral transformation of femininity and the rise of the public-private division Fiction, hegemony, and the aesthetic dimension of citizenship Excess, rebellion, and revolution : Egyptian modernity in the "trilogy" of Nagib Mahfuz Epilogue.