The making of a leftist milieu: anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, and the political engagement of intellectuals in Mandate Lebanon, 1920-1948.

Permanent URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20261150
Title:
The making of a leftist milieu : anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, and the political engagement of intellectuals in Mandate Lebanon, 1920-1948
Creator:
Karam, Sana Tannoury (Author)
Contributor:
Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham (Advisor)
Frangie, Samer (Committee member)
Khoury, Philip (Committee member)
Streets-Salter, Heather (Committee member)
Language:
English
Publisher:
Boston, Massachusetts : Northeastern University, December 2017
Date Awarded:
December 2017
Date Accepted:
December 2017
Type of resource:
Text
Genre:
Dissertations
Format:
electronic
Digital origin:
born digital
Abstract/Description:
This dissertation is an intellectual and cultural history of an invisible generation of leftists that were active in Lebanon, and more generally in the Levant, between the years 1920 and 1948. It chronicles the foundation and development of this intellectual milieu within the political Left, and how intellectuals interpreted leftist principles and struggled to maintain a fluid, ideologically non-rigid space, in which they incorporated an array of ideas and affinities, and formulated their own distinct worldviews. More broadly, this study is concerned with how intellectuals in the post-World War One period engaged with the political sphere and negotiated their presence within new structures of power. It explains the social, political, as well as personal contexts that prompted intellectuals to embrace certain ideas. Using periodicals, personal papers, memoirs, and collections of primary material produced by this milieu, this dissertation argues that leftist intellectuals pushed to politicize the role and figure of the intellectual. Moreover, by blurring ideological and political boundaries, these leftists redefined, even if briefly, the terms of inclusion into their local political sphere and global movements. This dissertation inserts Arab leftist intellectuals and activists into the global moment of the interwar period and the context of World War Two, examining their links with the League Against Imperialism and the Spanish Civil War, their opposition to the fascist powers threatening the world before and during the Second World War, and their overlap with the women's movement.
Subjects and keywords:
Arab communism
Arab left
intellectual history
Lebanese politics and history
modern Middle East
world history
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17760/D20261150
Permanent Link:
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20261150
Use and reproduction:
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