At a time when it seems difficult to communicate and break down barriers of mutual distrust, this book presents the views of leading Arab intellectuals from countries from Morocco to the Gulf who discuss their own highly diverse personal and professional perspectives on cosmopolitanism in the Middle East. The idea for the book springs from a seminar organized by the European Cultural Foundation in September 1996 on the future of cosmopolitanism in the Middle East.
Presents the views of leading Arab intellectuals from countries from Morocco to the Gulf who discuss their own personal and professional perspectives on cosmopolitanism in the Middle East.
This volume discusses globalising processes from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences. It focuses on the ‘global south’, notably the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Densely researched case studies examine a variety of approaches for their potential to understand connecting processes on different scales. The studies seek to overcome the main traps of the ‘globalisation’ paradigm, such as its occidental bias, its notion of linear expansion, its simplifying dichotomy between ‘local’ and ‘global’, and an often-found lack of historical depth. They elaborate the asymmetries, mobilities, opportunities and barriers involved in globalising processes. Their new perspective on these processes is captured by the concept of ‘translocality’, which aims at integrating a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches from different disciplines.
Discover the essence of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit and what it has contributed to societies across the ages In Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, author and expert, Bruce B. Lawrence, delivers a spiritual elan filtered through cultural practices and artefacts. Neither juridical nor creedal, the book expresses a desire for the just and the beautiful. The author sets out an original and fascinating theory, that Islamicate cosmopolitanism marks a new turn in global history. An unceasing, self-critical pursuit of truth, hitched to both beauty and justice, its history is marked by male elites who were scientific exemplars in the pre-modern period. In the modern period, these exemplars include women as well as men, artists as well as scientists. The Islamicate Cosmopolitans have had special impact across the Afro-Eurasian ecumene at the heart of civilized exchange between multiple groups with competing yet convergent interests. The Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit is a boundary busting challenge to those who think of the world merely in terms of an “Arab” Middle East. Readers will also benefit from: A thorough introduction to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit across time and space An exploration of premodern Afro-Eurasia and Persianate Culture in the Indian Ocean A practical discussion of the future of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit Perfect for all students of Islamicate civilization, both traditional and progressive, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit will also earn a place in the libraries of general readers of world history and those grounded in the larger history of Islamicate Asia will find a perspective that centers their own contribution to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit.
For members of Cairo's upper classes, cosmopolitanism is a form of social capital, deployed whenever they acquire or consume transnational commodities, or goods that are linked in the popular imagination to other, more "modern" places. In a series of thickly described and carefully contextualized case studies—of Arabic children's magazines, Pokémon, private schools and popular films, coffee shops and fast-food restaurants—Mark Allen Peterson describes the social practices that create class identities. He traces these processes from childhood into adulthood, examining how taste and style intersect with a changing educational system and economic liberalization. Peterson reveals how uneasy many cosmopolitan Cairenes are with their new global identities, and describes their efforts to root themselves in the local through religious, nationalist, or linguistic practices.
The study of Cosmopolitanism has been transformed in the last 20 years and the subject itself has become highly discussed across the social sciences and the humanities. The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism pursues distinct theoretical orientations and empirical analyses, bringing together mainstream discussions with the newest thinking and developments on the main themes, debates and controversies surrounding the subject.
The study of Cosmopolitanism has been transformed in the last 20 years and the subject itself has become highly discussed across the social sciences and the humanities. The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism pursues distinct theoretical orientations and empirical analyses, bringing together mainstream discussions with the newest thinking and developments on the main themes, debates and controversies surrounding the subject. The contributions are grouped into three parts, each reflecting a different analytical focus within a variety of intellectual disciplines and methodological approaches. Part I (Cultural Cosmopolitanism) is primarily concerned with the empirically-grounded aspects of cosmopolitanism which are apparent in mundane practices and lifestyle options on the micro-scale of daily interactions. It focuses on the outlooks and lived experience of ordinary individuals and groups in concrete situational contexts and social structures. Part II (Political Cosmopolitanism) sets out the main topics and issues dealt with by scholars writing within the tradition of political cosmopolitanism. Addressing timely issues such as human rights, global justice, and global democracy, it focuses on Cosmopolitanism as an ethico-political ideal and a political project to devise new forms of supranational and transnational governance. Part III (Debates) reflects the major debates and controversies on the subject and deliberately eschews any bland consensus to instead foreground the key arguments and lively intellectual discussions in play across disciplinary divisions. Featuring contributions from key thinkers in the field, including Ulrich Beck, David Held and Martha Nussbaum, this comprehensive volume will be a valuable resource for all academics and students working within this area of study.
This book presents and analyses the results of the use and adaptation of ancient Egyptian architecture in modern times. It traces the use of ancient Egyptian motifs and constructions across the world, from Australia, the Americas and Southern Africa to Western Europe. It also inquires into the cultural, economic and social contexts of this practice. Imhotep Today is exceptional not only in its global coverage, but in its analyses of thorny questions such as: what was it about Ancient Egypt that inspired such Egyptianizing monuments, and was it just one idea, or several different ones which formed the basis of such activities? The book also asks why only certain images, such as obelisks and sphinxes, were incorporated within the movement. The contributors explore how these 'monuments' fitted into the local architecture of the time and, in this context, they investigate whether 'Egyptianizing architecture' is an ongoing movement and, if so, how it differs from earlier, similar activities.
This two-volume book offers a panoramic explanatory narrative of Soqotra Island’s rediscovery based on the global significance of its endemic biodiversity. The first volume, A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra: A Mesography of an Indigenous Polity in Yemen initiated the analytical inventory of the four key vectors of Soqotra’s transition process through a discussion of the first two: economic disarticulation and political incorporation. This volume, A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra: Cultural & Environmental Annexation of an Indigenous Community completes the analytical inventory by exploring the other two pivotal vectors of transition: cultural modernization and environmental annexation. These two vectors encompass the critical sociocultural spheres and environmental domains in which Soqotra’s transformation process is unfolding. The origin of these vectors is situated within Soqotra’s long history of exogenous mediations by external actors and their symbolic appropriation of the island into an imaginative geography. The legacy is a “symbolic curse," which has made Soqotra into an ideal playground for fantasist cultural or environmental experiments. Accordingly, this volume undertakes, first, a systematic inventory of the communal effects engendered within the domains of cultural modernization: dissonant linguistic attitudes, alienating consumption practices, divergent religious affiliations, and differentiating economic aspirations. Second, it anatomizes the process of environmental annexation through the reconstruction of the formulation and implementation process of a biodiversity conservation and sustainable development experiment in which the island and its residents are appropriated into an anachronistic paradigm – a pastoral ecotopia – as a blueprint of their future.
