Adab Colloquium with Presenter Ziad Dallal, Bard College, and Discussant Matthew Keegan, Barnard College

Desire and the Diseases of Translation: The Metaphorology of Civilization in Alas, I am Not a European

How can notions of civilization and identity help us think about the politics of literature in the Nada? This paper tackles Khalil al-Khüri's definition of civilization (tamaddun) as an untranslatable element of the social body whose corruption threatens its own reproduction, and considers the implications of al-Khüri's understanding of tamaddun for Arab literary and intellectual history.

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