The Role of Art in the Struggle for a National Identity in Lebanon

The Role of Art in the Struggle for a National Identity in Lebanon PDF Author: Farshad Mohammad-Avvali
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638778606
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: keine, American University of Beirut, course: Cultural Boundaries and Identities, language: English, abstract: The paper will analyze the nationalist movements and national sentiments of four entities: Quebec, Lebanon, Israel and Greece, and attempt a comparison with the conditions for a vital national identity in Lebanon. It will be suggested that the internal differences in Lebanon, dominated by a very intolerant ethnic marker, namely religion, are so predominant that they overshadow any kind of national identity that can detach Lebanese society from their sub-national attachments in order to generate national sentiments for all Lebanese people. Complicating this condition, also foreign intervention through alliances with the various groups within Lebanon comes into play. Using the Québécois, the Israeli and the Greek example, it shall be shown that a certain amount of internal unity is needed to create sentiments of belonging. Only then, art can play a significant role in enhancing national identity through symbols and material objects. Québec developed a strong legal code to protect its distinct Québécois nature against English-speaking Canada. In Greece, the Orthodox Church took the responsibility of safeguarding not only religion, but also language, folklore, dance and literature against Turkish domination and the post-Ottoman conflict over territory. Israel had and still has to struggle with the construction of a national identity that is based on the ethnic marker religion. Furthermore, the political state had to embrace various Jewish communities with different cultural habits and customs and define what kind of Jewish life is truly acceptable. Hence, cultural customs have been defined in order to create a distinct Israeli identity. For our purposes, we refer to the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Israeli perspective, being fully aware that we only spotlight one certain

The Role of Art in the Struggle for a National Identity in Lebanon

The Role of Art in the Struggle for a National Identity in Lebanon PDF Author: Farshad Mohammad-Avvali
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638778606
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Get Book Here

Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: keine, American University of Beirut, course: Cultural Boundaries and Identities, language: English, abstract: The paper will analyze the nationalist movements and national sentiments of four entities: Quebec, Lebanon, Israel and Greece, and attempt a comparison with the conditions for a vital national identity in Lebanon. It will be suggested that the internal differences in Lebanon, dominated by a very intolerant ethnic marker, namely religion, are so predominant that they overshadow any kind of national identity that can detach Lebanese society from their sub-national attachments in order to generate national sentiments for all Lebanese people. Complicating this condition, also foreign intervention through alliances with the various groups within Lebanon comes into play. Using the Québécois, the Israeli and the Greek example, it shall be shown that a certain amount of internal unity is needed to create sentiments of belonging. Only then, art can play a significant role in enhancing national identity through symbols and material objects. Québec developed a strong legal code to protect its distinct Québécois nature against English-speaking Canada. In Greece, the Orthodox Church took the responsibility of safeguarding not only religion, but also language, folklore, dance and literature against Turkish domination and the post-Ottoman conflict over territory. Israel had and still has to struggle with the construction of a national identity that is based on the ethnic marker religion. Furthermore, the political state had to embrace various Jewish communities with different cultural habits and customs and define what kind of Jewish life is truly acceptable. Hence, cultural customs have been defined in order to create a distinct Israeli identity. For our purposes, we refer to the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Israeli perspective, being fully aware that we only spotlight one certain

The Politics of Art

The Politics of Art PDF Author: Hanan Toukan
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503627764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Over the last three decades, a new generation of conceptual artists has come to the fore in the Arab Middle East. As wars, peace treaties, sanctions, and large-scale economic developments have reshaped the region, this cohort of cultural producers has also found themselves at the center of intergenerational debates on the role of art in society. Central to these cultural debates is a steady stream of support from North American and European funding organizations—resources that only increased with the start of the Arab uprisings in the early 2010s. The Politics of Art offers an unprecedented look into the entanglement of art and international politics in Beirut, Ramallah, and Amman to understand the aesthetics of material production within liberal economies. Hanan Toukan outlines the political and social functions of transnationally connected and internationally funded arts organizations and initiatives, and reveals how the production of art within global frameworks can contribute to hegemonic structures even as it is critiquing them—or how it can be counterhegemonic even when it first appears not to be. In so doing, Toukan proposes not only a new way of reading contemporary art practices as they situate themselves globally, but also a new way of reading the domestic politics of the region from the vantage point of art.

The Collectivization of Lebanese National Identity from Contending Historical Narratives

The Collectivization of Lebanese National Identity from Contending Historical Narratives PDF Author: Zeina Abdallah
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Collective memory
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description


Beirut, Imagining the City

Beirut, Imagining the City PDF Author: Ghenwa Hayek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857736701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Beirut is the cultural, commercial and economic hub of Lebanon. But to what extent has the city affected and shaped the formation and perceptions of Lebanese national identity? Ghenwa Hayek here explores how anxieties over the past, present and future of Beirut have been articulated through a sense of dislocation present in Lebanese writing since the 1960s. Drawing on theories of cultural studies, geography and history, the author uses an interdisciplinary framework to explore the role that spaces - from rural to urban - have played and continue to play in the defining, and re-defining, of national identity in the seventy years since the creation of the Lebanese nation state. This theoretical perspective coupled with a close reading of little-explored contemporary writings lead Hayek to question the predominant assumption that Lebanese novelists only became engaged in discourses about place identity and individual and social belonging with the start of the fifteen-year civil war and the destruction of Beirut's city centre. Instead, the book shows that particular geographical imaginaries have been mobilized to describe, question and debate Lebanese identity since the 1960s and that some go back even further into the late nineteenth century. This re-reading calls for a re-evaluation of some of the most predominant assumptions about Lebanon and the processes of Lebanese identity formation across the country's modern history. Examining a wide range of modern and contemporary literature, Hayek charts the rise to cultural prominence of the city of Beirut as a significant player in shaping perceptions of Lebanese culture and identity.

Cosmopolitan Radicalism

Cosmopolitan Radicalism PDF Author: Zeina Maasri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487718
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Exploring visual culture, design and politics in 1960s Beirut, this compelling interdisciplinary study examines a critical period in Lebanon's history.

Martyr Cults and Political Identities in Lebanon

Martyr Cults and Political Identities in Lebanon PDF Author: Sabrina Bonsen
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658280980
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Sabrina Bonsen sheds light on political cults of martyrs in Lebanon and reconsiders the context of their emergence, development and distinct characteristics since 1920. She examines how the honouring of martyrs became an established practice in Lebanese politics and is crucial to grasp the logic of violence and conflict. Drawing on the case of the Amal movement, the author analyses central narratives to the group’s discourse and practices concerning martyrdom to show how identity construction and strategies of legitimizing power are intertwined. Moreover, the book provides insides into political competition strategies, especially in regards to the two major Shiʿite political actors, Amal and Hizbullah, and takes a new look on martyrdom by going beyond cultural-religious explanations.

The Lebanese-Phoenician Nationalist Movement

The Lebanese-Phoenician Nationalist Movement PDF Author: Basilius Bawardi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786720124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The question of belonging has formed the basis of the political, religious and cultural tensions in Lebanon, to the point that sectarian conflict on the country's future contributed significantly to the outbreak of civil war in 1975. This book focuses on the development of the Phoenician-Lebanese movement that struggled against the hegemonic status of Arabic language and culture. The Phoenician-Lebanese were a predominantly Maronite Christian group who attempted to remove themselves from the Muslim and Arab world throughout the twentieth century. Their demands for self-definition as a nation and their desire to establish their own culture were rooted in the concept of their ancient Phoenician past. Basilius Bawardi examines four prominent authors who formed the basis on which all engaged so-called Phoenician literature was built: Sharl Qurm, Sa'id 'Aql, Mayy Murr and Muris 'Awwad. The literary corpus of these writers was a critical component of the political activity that strove to distinguish the native Lebanese inhabitants from their Arab-Muslim neighbours.Studying these authors' works in both a literary and historical way, Bawardi shows how language was used to promote a specific political agenda and identifies the strong connections between language, literature and nation building. As well as revealing the nationalist struggle as it emerges in prose and poetry, the book discusses the history and formation of modern day Lebanon and why language and literature are so crucial for members of a national minority.

Shi'ite Lebanon

Shi'ite Lebanon PDF Author: Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023114427X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Annotation By providing a new framework for understanding Shi'ite national politics in Lebanon, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr recasts the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East

Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon

Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon PDF Author: Christopher Stone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135980160
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Based on an award-winning thesis, this volume is a pioneering study of musical theatre and popular culture and its relation to the production of identity in Lebanon in the second half of the twentieth century. In the aftermath of the departure of the French from Lebanon and the civil violence of 1958, the Rahbani brothers (Asi and Mansour) staged a series of folkloric musical theatrical extravaganzas at the annual Ba‘labakk festival which highlighted the talents of Asi’s wife, the Lebanese diva Fairouz, arguably the most famous living Arab singer. The inclusion of these folkloric vignettes into the festival’s otherwise European dominated cultural agenda created a powerful nation-building combination of what Partha Chatterjee calls the ‘appropriation of the popular’ and the ‘classicization of tradition.’ The Rahbani project coincides with the confluence of increasing internal and external migration in Lebanon, as well as with the rapid development of mass media technology, of which the Ba'labakk festival can be seen as an extension. Employing theories of nationalism, modernity, globalism and locality, this book shows that these factors combined to give the project a potent identity-forming power. Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon is the first study of Fairouz and the Rahbani family in English and will appeal to students and researchers in the field of Middle East studies, Popular culture and musical theatre.

The Transitional Program of the Lebanese National Program

The Transitional Program of the Lebanese National Program PDF Author: Valia Hassane Chami
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lebanon
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Secular mood reached its highest level on the eve of the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war This was manifested by the flourishing of a politicized student movement, the expanding influence of secular political parties and increasing role of labor unions Lebanon's socio-political scene has been interpreted in various ways which expressed the multifaceted nature of conflict in the mid 1970's.--The sects in Lebanon are politically important because they are traditionally the primary social organizations through which political security has been maintained Sects have long been organized in semi autonomous communities, and the religious chiefs have always had distinct political functions.--What will follow is an attempt to analyze the transitional program of the Lebanese National Movement by tracing back the origins of sectarianism, and tackling the issue of Lebanese national identity. A comprehensive analysis of the transitional program, taking into consideration its socio-political and economic context would hopefully shed a light on possible reasonable solutions that would satisfy the majority of the Lebanese.