Creative Radicalism in the Middle East

Caroline Rooney is Professor of African and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Kent. From 2009-2016, she held Global Uncertainties Fellowships (AHRC/ESRC) with research programmes that explore the differences between radicalism and extremism through the arts and popular culture. Her work engages with contemporary arts activism both critically and creatively, ranging from scholarly research to theatre production, filmmaking and the curating of exhibitions.

• Introduction: From Radical Distrust to the Arab Avant-Garde.1. Politics as Theatre in Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition2. Discourses of Authenticity and Poetic Good Faith: Algeria, Israel, and Syria3. From Hegemonic Interpellations to Revolutionary Signs or Amara4. Chronic Disappointment, Humiliation and Pariah Elitism in the Arab Novel5. Cults of Pride and Cultures of Right-Wing Populism6. The Poetics of Karama or Why the Egyptian Revolution was a Poem7. Figuring the Sacred in Martyr Art8. Equine Messianism in Palestinian Literature and ArtConclusion: Adab and Iqtibas

In Creative Radicalism in the Middle East, Caroline Rooney maps out a new generation of critical thinking and details the terms of the unfinished project of Arab Revolutions. She observed these revolutions closely, thought them through thoroughly, and then reflected upon their causes and consequences for a good period of critical meditation, and then just about the time when the world thought these revolutions were finished and done with she came out with this bold and brilliant opus. We all have to go back to the drawing board.