| Edition |
1st ed. |
| Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 247 pages) : illustrations (some color) |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Summary |
Since the mid-1970s, Lebanon has been at the center of the worldwide rise in sectarian extremism. Its cultural output has both mediated and resisted this rise. Standing by the Ruins reviews the role of culture in supporting sectarianism, yet argues for the emergence of a distinctive aesthetic of resistance to it. Focusing on contemporary Lebanese fiction, film, and popular culture, this book shows how artists reappropriated the twin legacies of commitment literature and the ancient topos of standing by the ruinsto form a new elegiac humanismduring the tumultuous period of 1975 to 2005. It redirects attention to the critical role of culture in conditioning attitudes throughout society and is therefore relevant to other societies facing sectarian extremism. Standing by the Ruins is also a strong intervention in the burgeoning field of World Literature. Elaborating on the great Arabist Hilary Kilpatrick's crucial insight that ancient Arabic forms and topoi filter into modern literature, the author details how the standing by the ruinstopos-and the structure of feeling it conditions-has migrated over time. Modern Arabic novels, feature films, and popular culture, far from being simply cultural imports, are hybrid forms deployed to respond to the challenges of contemporary Arab society. As such, they can take their place within a World Literature paradigm: they are cultural products that travel and intervene in the world. -- Book Description. |
| Contents |
Cover; Contents; List of Figures and Plates; Acknowledgments; Note on Transliterations; Introduction: Shoring These Ruins against My Fragments; A Pioneer of the Present; Cultural Knock-on; Mythic Utopian Futures; Elegiac Pasts; Elegiac Humanism; A Culture in Ruins; 1. Absence at the Heart of Yearning: Civil War and Postwar Novels; Ruins and Elegy in The House of Mathilde (Binayat Mathilde); Decay of Elegy in The Stone of Laughter (Hajar al-Dahik); Ruins Redeemed in Dear Mr Kawabata ('Azizi al-Sayyid Kawabata); Anti-Ruin in Ya Salam (Good Heavens). |
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Limits of Elegy in Berytus: Madina taht al-Ard (Berytus: City Underground)Conclusion: Learning to Yearn; 2. "Speak, Ruins!": The Work of Nostalgia in Feature Film; Ruins of Conviviality in Beirut: The Meeting (Bayrut, al-Liqa'); Ruin and De-education in Beyond Life (Hors la vie); Living among the Ruins in The Pink House (al-Bayt al-Zahr); Recycling Ruin in In the Shadows of the City (Tayf al-Madina); If These Ruins Could Speak in When Maryam Spoke (Lamma Hikyit Maryam); Conclusion: Elegiac Self-Consciousness; 3. Elegiac Humanism and Popular Politics: The Independence Uprising of 2005. |
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A Grammar of GrievingRecoding Mourning, Popular Culture, and Politics; Oratorical and Democratic Discourses; Sectarian to National Consciousness; Conclusion: Ruins of a Humanistic Resistance; Conclusion: "We're All Hezbollah Now"; Appendix: A Selected Bibliography of Lebanese War Novels; Notes; Works Cited; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y; Z. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Arabic literature -- Lebanon -- History and criticism.
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Literature and society -- Lebanon.
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Popular culture -- Lebanon.
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Lebanon -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- African. |
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Arabic literature |
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Intellectual life |
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Literature and society |
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Popular culture |
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Lebanon |
| Chronological Term |
1900-1999 |
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Seigneurie, Ken. Standing by the ruins. 1st ed. New York : Fordham University Press, 2011 9780823234820 (DLC) 2011016161 (OCoLC)692292481 |
| ISBN |
9780823244362 (electronic bk.) |
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0823244369 (electronic bk.) |
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9780823234820 |
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0823234827 |
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9780823234837 |
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0823234835 |
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