Nadia Baghdadi Libri

This book assembles for the first time a broad range of international scholarship on one of the leading figures of 19th-century Arabic letters, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1804−1887), considering biographical, philological, aesthetical, and historical perspectives. A Life in Praise of Words addresses the central motif of this eccentric polymath, whose entire literary, publicist and scholarly oeuvre bears witness to the author’s striving for a new language that would be adequate for the cultural and social needs of his time. The essays analyze al-Shidyaq’s life, thought, and literary output, all of which were deeply influenced by the lifelong experience of exile and social marginality, alternating with dependence on major political figures of the century. If both his biography and his oeuvre mark al-Shidyaq as vanguard author, the present volume explores the reasons for his long lasting misrecognition and late inclusion into the canon of the Arab nahda, focusing in particular on his biography and on his literary masterpiece al-Saq ͑ala al-saq.

Gut ausgebildete Migrantinnen mit muslimischem Hintergrund sind besonders von den widersprüchlichen Debatten rund um Migration betroffen. Einerseits gehören sie zu den aktuell erwünschten hochqualifizierten Fachkräften. Andererseits gelten sie als besonders fremd und laufen Gefahr, Integrationsdefiziten verdächtigt zu werden. Die Studie analysiert die Chancen und Grenzen, die sich daraus für die Teilnahme am Arbeitsmarkt und die Zugehörigkeitsgefühle ergeben. Damit beleuchtet das Buch ein wenig beachtetes Thema im Zusammenhang mit muslimischen Zugewanderten und erweitert den Blick auf hochqualifizierte Migration. Außerdem leistet es einen Beitrag zur Beantwortung der zentralen Frage nach dem Umgang mit Differenz in Theorie und Praxis.

This socio-literary study examines the relationship between processes of modernisation and reform, and new literary genres produced in Egypt of the second half of the 19th century. How did heterogenous modern literary forms emerge in this particular environment, and what were the underlying motivations of the new authors? Literature is regarded here as a specific sphere of knowledge and representation, facilitating in its modes of reflection novel individual and societal patterns of experience. If urbanity played a special role as constitutive element of narrative prose, ideas about new forms of public sphere and public opinion also played their role. The new means of text production, finally, attested to the recession of the auratic perception of a text.