Challenging prevalent conceptualizations of modernity--which treat it either as a Western ideology imposed by colonialism or as a universal narrative of progress and innovation--this study instead offers close readings of the simultaneous performances and contestations of modernity staged in works by authors such as Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Tayeb Salih, Hanan al-Shaykh, Hamdi Abu Golayyel, and Ahmad Alaidy.
In dialogue with affect theory, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis, the book reveals these trials to be a violent and ongoing confrontation with and within modernity. In pointed and witty prose, El-Ariss bridges the gap between Nahda (the so-called Arab project of Enlightenment) and postcolonial and postmodern fiction.

Challenging prevalent conceptualizations of modernity--which treat it either as a Western ideology imposed by colonialism or as a universal narrative of progress and innovation--this study instead offers close readings of the simultaneous performances and contestations of modernity staged in works by authors such as Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Tayeb Salih, Hanan al-Shaykh, Hamdi Abu Golayyel, and Ahmad Alaidy.
In dialogue with affect theory, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis, the book reveals these trials to be a violent and ongoing confrontation with and within modernity. In pointed and witty prose, El-Ariss bridges the gap between Nahda (the so-called Arab project of Enlightenment) and postcolonial and postmodern fiction.

In the Nahda, or Arab Renaissance, from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Arab culture and politics for the first time responded to European modernity and face the challenges to Arab power, tradition, and identity posed by the industrial, colonial nations of the West. In the process, Arab society both imitated and innovated, translating contemporary foreign texts, adopting new genres, developing journalism, creating a new publishing industry, and building new educational systems as it changed under conflicting forces: nationalism, secularism, Islamic revival, and language reforms. Collected in this anthology are texts by intellectuals, writers, clergy, and political figures that deal with authority, social norms, conventions and practices both secular and religious, gender roles, class, travel, and technology. Presented in the original Arabic and in English translation, they will be of interest of students of Arabic language and culture, history, cultural studies, gender studies, and other disciplines.