Arab Nationalism

This book sheds light on cultural expressions of Arab Nationalism and the contradictory meanings often attached to it. It presents nationalism as an experienceable set of identity markers - in stories, visual culture, narratives of memory and struggles with ideology. Using case studies, the book transcends a conventional history that reduces nationalism in the Arab lands to a pattern of political rise and decline. It suggests Arabs have constructed an identifiable shared national culture, and it critically dissects conceptions about Arab nationalism as an easily graspable secular and authoritarian ideology modelled on Western ideas and visions of modernity.

1. Introduction: A Critique of Arab Nationalism
2. The Trials and Tribulations of the Poet Fu'ad al-Khatib: A Biographical Essay on the Origins of Arab Nationalism
3. Holding Up the Mirror: Imperialism and the Poetics of Cultural Pan-Arabism
3.1. Saladin the Victor: National Saints, Great Men, and the Rise of the Individual
3.2. From the Glory of Conquest to Paradise Lost: Al-Andalus in Arab Historical Consciousness
4. Of Kings and Cavemen: Museums and Nationalist Museology in Twentieth Century Egypt
5. Damascus Transfers: Dead Bodies and their Translocal Meanings
6. Nearly Victorious: The Art of Staging Arab Military Prowess
7. Arab Nationalism, Fascism and the Jews
8. Epilogue and Conclusion: Broken Narratives