The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Literature and Culture

Amāra and the 2011 Revolution

Ayman A. El-Desouky

The challenges of social cohesion and the radical possibilities of solidaristic action are among the most pressing issues on the global scene today. The Intellectual and the People in Egyptian Language and Culture argues for the need for a localized and culturally nuanced conceptual language with which to re-conceive the radical possibilities that have been unleashed with the recent social movements since 2011. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the book investigates representations of ‘the people’ in intellectual and political discourses. There has been much discussion of the intellectual’s relation to power, but what is the intellectual’s relation to ‘the people’? Are ‘the people’ always spoken for, or do they also speak and in speaking produce their own knowledge? Focusing on the case of the Egyptian revolution, the author offers the specifically Egyptian cultural practice of amāra as a populist aesthetic of resonance and an ethic of solidarity.

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-intellectual-and-the-people-in-egyptian-literature-and-culture-ayman-a-eldesouky/?K=9781137392435