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The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi A. Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries, the 1960s Arab New Left, addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and nonemancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation.
The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi A. Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries, the 1960s Arab New Left, addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and nonemancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation.
A Note on Transliteration and Translation ix
Prologue xi
Introduction 1
Part I. Time of History
1. O Youth, O Arabs, O Nationalists: Recalling the High Tides of
Anticolonial Pan-Arabism 27
2. Dreams of a Dual Birth: Socialist Lebanon's Theoretical
Imaginary (1964–1970) 53
3. June 1967 and Its Historiographical Afterlives 82
Part II. Times of the Sociocultural
4. Paradoxes of Emancipation: Revolution and Power in Light of
Mao 113
5. Exit Marx/Enter Ibn Khaldun: Wartime Disenchantment and
Critique 138
6. Traveling Theory and Political Practice: Orientalism in the Age
of the Islamic Revolution 165
Epilogue 187
Acknowledgments 195
Notes 201
Bibliography 241
Index 255
Fadi A. Bardawil is Assistant Professor of Asian and Middle East Studies at Duke University.
“Fadi A. Bardawil's Revolution and Disenchantment is at once a rich
redescription and rehistoricization of the rise and fall of the
Lebanese New Left, and an exemplary illustration of how to rework
the problem of theory in relation to the practices of
nonmetropolitan political intellectuals. With a timely attunement
to the paradoxical conundrums of his present and an uncommon
generosity of spirit, Bardawil challenges us to reconceive the
contemporary demand for a dialogue between Arab intellectual
traditions and the traditions of Western critical theory.”
*David Scott, Columbia University*
“Conceptually brilliant, prodigiously researched, and appealingly
written, Revolution and Disenchantment tracks the theoretical
innovations and political stakes of Arab revolutionary Marxism in
the postwar era, contributing to timely debates about the necessity
of decolonizing critical theory and the relationship between
revolutionary militancy and political disenchantment. Fadi A.
Bardawil's innovative archival excavation recovers the theoretical
labor of Arab intellectuals, theorists, and militants from Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, and Palestine in the midst of a multiplicity of
political upheavals.”
*The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt*
"Is the question of social inequality eclipsed by sectarianism in
the Near East? Is it possible to found a Left which is both
autonomous and critical of nationalism? Fadi Bardawil brings this
important episode of theoretical elaboration back to the history of
Arab thought. Further, he invites us to break away from the
colonial perspective which stipulates that social theory is created
in the North and applied to the South." (translated from
French)
*Le Monde Diplomatique*
"Revolution and Disenchantment brings Lebanon back into the story
of the twentieth century francophone left and elegantly delivers a
new framework for understanding the translation and transformation
of theory."
*Global Intellectual History*
“Revolution and Disenchantment…dismantles the ‘critique of
Eurocentrism’ as the only way to conduct critical scholarship in
Arab thought. Most significantly, it deftly and incisively performs
the theoretical ground-clearing that will enable scholars of Arab
and postcolonial thought to stage the fine-grained, sustained,
generous-yet-critical readings of Arab intellectuals as
thinkers….”
*Postcolonial Studies*
"Revolution and Disenchantment is a different kind of academic
book, profoundly interdisciplinary as it weaves together the crux
of postcolonial studies, intellectual history, political theory and
anthropological inquiries…. The book truly pries open the
epistemological categories of modern social sciences."
*LSE Review of Books*
"This volume is an impressive example of critical scholarship
examining the intellectual and political dynamics of the modern
history of Lebanon and its Arab neighbors. It vividly demonstrates
the revolutionary hope and political disenchantment that continue
to characterize the Middle East today."
*Choice*
“[Bardawil’s] thoughtful excavation of [a] forgotten archive of
Arab Marxist theory, critical attention to social and political
conditions, and nuanced analysis of the relationship between theory
and practice produce a provocative argument about the pitfalls of
adopting binary visions of power relations.”
*American Historical Review*
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