Marwa Elshakry's 'Knowledge in Motion'

Elshakry's first book

Marwa Elshakry’s “Knowledge in Motion: The Cultural Politics of Modern Science Translations in Arabic” (2008) explores one of the chief defining characteristics of the nahdah: the translation of ideas from not only one language to another, but from one culture to another. Elshakry relies on a variety of sources, particularly Levantine Christian Nahdawis Faris Nimr’s and Yaqub Sarruf’s famous al-Muqtataf magazine, founded in 1876, known for its translations of scientific information coming from Europe. Elshakry explores the politics of neologisms; the ways in which ideas could be perceived as religiously or culturally unacceptable and therefore dangerous; and the pragmatic difficulties of rendering alien concepts, and whole alien ways of categorizing knowledge, into a new, foreign field. She argues against “a tendency to see the ‘receiving’ culture as purely passive—its choice of responses limited to either faithful receipt of the original or regrettable incomprehension” explaining that what is needed instead is “an analysis of the linguistic and sociocultural strategies by which concepts, terms, and even theoretical constructs are made legible across cultural borders and rendered stable over time.”[1]

Quote of the Day

Mohammed Arkoun, speaking of revivalist understandings of the Islamic past:

"a tinkered coherence was found based on arbitrarily selected fragments and traditions"
 
                                                                                                                        -Islam et Modernité 

Thursday's Read: Justice and Only Justice

Ateek, Naim. Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation. (Orbis Books, 1989)

Tuesday's Read: The Education of Salama Musa

Musa, Salama. The Education of Salama Musa. (Leiden: Brill, 1961)

Saturday's Read: ما العولمة؟

Hanafi, Hasan and Sadiq al-Azm. Ma al-awlamah? Hiwarat li-qarn jadid. (Dar al-Fikr al-Muasir, 1999)

Saturday's Read: Iran Between Two Revolutions

Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982)

Friday's Read: The Old Social Classes and New Revolutionary Movements of Iraq

Batatu, Hanna.  The Old Social Classes and New Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. (London: Al-Saqi, 1978)

Wednesday's Read: A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel

Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997)

Past Read: The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East

Seale, Patrick. The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Wednesday's Read: Arab Thought

Arkoun, Mohammed. Arab Thought. (New Delhi: S. Chand, 1988)

Wednesday's Read: The Unthought In Contemporary Islamic Thought

Arkoun, Mohammed. The Unthought In Contemporary Islamic Thought. (London: Saqi, 2002)

Tuesday's Read: The Emergence of Modern Turkey

Lewis, Bernard The Emergence of Modern Turkey. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Monday's Read: Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001

 

















Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. (New York: Vintage, 2001)

Friday's Read: The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858

 
















Cuno, Kenneth. The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740 - 1858. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993)

Clark, Janine A. Islam, Charity, and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004)

Tuesday's Read: Islam et Histoire

Abdallah Laroui. (Arawi, ‘Abd Allah.) Islam et Histoire. (Paris: Flammarion, 1999)

Monday's Read: Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World

Abu-Rabi’, Ibrahim. Intellectual origins of Islamic resurgence in the modern Arab world. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996)

Sunday's Read: Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique

Al-Jabri, Mohammed. Trans Aziz Abbissi. Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique. (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1999)

Friday's Read: Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition

Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)

Thursday's Read: The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography

Azmeh, Aziz. The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Central European University Press (November 4, 2007)

Past Read: A History of Saudi Arabia

Vasiliev, Alexei. A History of Saudi Arabia. (New York: New York University Press, 2000)

Tuesday's Read: Ma'na an-Nakbah

Zurayq, Qunstantin. Trans. R. Bayly Winder. The Meaning of the Disaster. (Beirut, Khayat's College Book Cooperative, 1956.)