Cultural Resistance: Global and Local Encounters in the Middle East - Couverture rigide

Khalaf, Samir

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0863568149 ISBN 13 : 9780863568145

Editeur : Saqi Books, 2001

Synopsis

This book addresses in the first instance the interplay between traditional loyalties and social change, and explores the crisis of Arab intellectuals and their failure to act as effective carriers of socio-cultural and ideological transformations in their respective societies. This deficiency highlights even more the role of seemingly 'traditional' groups that have emerged as alternate vehicles for change. The second part of the book deals with the Protestant legacy in the Middle East. Starting with a detailed critique of Protestant Orientalism, the author exposes the mind sets and some of the disparaging images American Protestants harboured towards Islam in their efforts to evangelize the Orient. Samir Khalaf follows with an analysis of the impact of the prolonged civil war in Lebanon - psychological, economic and, particularly, social - on communal identities and group loyalties, but also on collective psychology and perceptions towards the 'other'. The sustained brutalities and the changing forms of violence are also analysed, while focusing on how seemingly ordinary citizens got entrapped in it, and how traumatized groups came to cope with chronic hostility and fear. Khalaf's ideas on the restoration of civility in Lebanon suggest solutions for the social and physical reconstruction and rehabilitation, and argue that communal and retribalized loyalties can become viable agencies for transforming a geography of fear into a political culture of tolerance.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Samir Khalaf is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Center for Behavioral Research at the American University of Beirut. He has held academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New York University and is also a recipient of several international fellowships and research awards. He is the author of numerous books, including Beirut Reclaimed (1994), Recovering Beirut (with Philip Khoury, 1993), Lebanon's Predicament (1987), Persistence and Change in Nineteenth-Century Lebanon (1979) and Hamra of Beirut (1972) and Civil and Uncivil Violence: The Internationalization of Communal Conflict in Lebanon (2002).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Saqi Books
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0863568149
• ISBN 13: 9780863568145
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 326
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible