Summary

Most studies on dissent in contemporary Arabic literature have explored it in connection with what is referred to as the “trinity of the forbidden” (al-thālūth al-muḥarram) in Arab-Muslim worlds, namely sex, religion and politics. As much in Europe and the United States (Allen, Kilpatrick, and de Moor, 2001; Elimelekh, 2014; Mehta, 2014) as in the Arab countries (Kanafānī, 1967; Munīf, 1991; Boustani, El-Enany, and Hamarneh, 2016), these studies’ authors have taken as a starting point romanticized conceptualizations of both dissent and resistance (Abu-Lughod, 1990). It is worth noting that beyond the Arab countries, although the notion of dissent first emerged in the 17th century to describe the behaviour of any individual professing a faith different from the official religion of their country, its meaning later expanded to include the contestation of authoritarianism in communist regimes during the Cold War, and it eventually become synonymous with “counter-culture”. Generally speaking, this broadening of connotations has freed the notion of dissent from its strictly ideological meanings, leading academics in the humanities and social sciences to analyse various forms of opposition and protest under its framework (Bernard and Kuperty-Tsur, 2013). Nevertheless, studies of Arabic literature continue to interpret dissent narrowly and take a parochial approach. Moreover, with only a few exceptions, these works have overlooked the forms of mediation that exist between the social space and the field of literary production.

To build on the research presented in Tunis in September 2022 during a workshop at the Insāniyyāt/Insaniyyat Congress titled “Forms of Dissent in the Arabic Literary Space: Writings, Postures, Publications”, we are seeking contributions on the theme of dissent – in its broad sense – that examine the complex relationship between literature and society in contemporary times. This relationship, which can also be understood through the notion of entanglement, is never direct but rather the result of what Pierre Bourdieu considered, according to the critical paradigm he developed in the early 1990s, an effect of “refraction” in the literary field, i.e., the result of a process whereby the field translates external phenomena (social, economic, political) to make them compatible with its internal functioning (1992). Due to this refraction of external phenomena, the oppositions and struggles that manifest in the social space can form the basis of more distinctly literary oppositions and struggles, which mould themselves to the specific functioning and stakes of the field itself. What happens to the notion of dissent when it is situated within an agonistic paradigm of literature such as Bourdieu’s? Can this paradigm help us renew, question, or even transcend the existing notion?

We would expect contributions proposed for this issue of REMMM to make use of these kinds of approach. They must address one of the following themes but may also explore topics not listed here:

Themes

1 - Dissent and the role of literary actors

In the sociology of culture, numerous studies have already been done on the links between dissent and the responsibility and commitment of literary actors (writers, publishers, agents, critics, translators) (Sapiro, 1999, 2018). Yet, few analyses rooted in this perspective have focused on literature in the Arabic space, where, since the revolutions in 2010 and 2011, attention has tended to focus on artistic production (Jacquemond and Lang, 2019; Larzillière, 2023; Perspectives El Amel Ettounsi, 2024). This type of analysis is even rarer when it comes to the forms and modes of political engagement developed by the latest generations of literary actors and in the least-studied countries of this space. How, then, should we understand the oppositional role of literary actors in these contexts? Should it always be considered in relation to decolonization, Pan-Arab nationalism or the hegemonic position of leftist ideas during the last century (Di-Capua, 2018; Klemm, 2000)? Or is it linked to a function of “counter-power” in the face of abuses by the state or regime in several Arab countries, as has been the case over the past three decades (Pannewick, Khalil, Albers, 2015)? From this point of view, the theme of dissent could also be explored in relation to the broader issue of the public role played by literary actors. Does this role still derive from the old “nahdawi paradigm”, based on the domination of a cultural elite closely linked to the state’s ideological apparatuses, as Richard Jacquemond (2003) observed in the Egyptian context? Or, conversely, are we seeing the undoing of that paradigm?

2 - Dissent and autonomy of the field

Contributions may also examine the relationship between dissent and the autonomy of the literary field. What can be said about the forms of opposition that engage with the field more directly in order to disrupt its internal hierarchies and power relations? To what extent can an actor demonstrate resistance against other actors in the literary field who are symbolically and/or materially dominant? Can such actions be understood as “counter-narratives” – the term commonly used as a catch-all for various types of dissent in the vast majority of literary studies? Or are they something else? Moreover, what of the new space of freedom offered by blogs and digital platforms? What is the impact of these new practices of writing and publishing (Pepe, 2019)? What are the consequences of the forms of dissent developing there, whose reach extends beyond the boundaries of the field, at a time when the inclusion of renowned Arab writers in transnational networks is now the norm rather than the exception (Lang, 2019)? Approaching the theme from a different angle, what is the relationship between the accumulation of economic capital and that of “symbolic” capital within the Arabic literary space today? In 1992, Bourdieu highlighted in his post-scriptum to the Rules of Art “the increasingly greater interpenetration between the world of art and the world of money” (Bourdieu, 1992:544). To what extent does this phenomenon apply to the condition of literary actors in the Arabic space, and is it the cause of some of its internal struggles? Moreover, are these actors still revolting against the same heteronomous forces that emerged during the last century? How does their role as dissenters today help strengthen the literary field’s independence from the other fields that make up the Arab social space (Benchenna, Marchetti, 2022)?

3 - Dissent and the international circulation of works and actors

Since the 1970s, Arabic literary works and actors have increasingly reached an international audience due to globalization, the new modes of cultural production and distribution it has generated (Sapiro, Pacouret, and Picaud, 2015), forced migrations and other diasporic phenomena (Sapiro, 2023). How can we explore dissent in the face of this weakening of national boundaries and internal logics? How can we go beyond the “methodological nationalism” (Wimmer and Schiller, 2002) that has characterized many of the studies on dissent up to now? While several epistemological tools now allow us to question the forms of confrontation that more directly involve hierarchies existing at the international level (Casanova, 1999, 2015; Brahimi, Leperlier, and Sapiro, 2018; Leperlier, 2021), contributions could explore forms of dissent that target the hierarchies produced by critics and the international academic field vis-à-vis works and literary actors from the Arab countries (Bianco, 2024). How do literary actors revolt against these “categorems” (Bourdieu, 1992, 570)? What strategies do they resort to in order to exploit them to their advantage? More importantly, are they truly able to overcome them? On another scale, how can we study the reactions of literary actors to power relations existing within the Arabic space itself? What forms of resistance do these actors use in the peripheral fields of this space vis-à-vis its centres or the more recent forms of hegemony that Gulf countries are attempting to establish through their cultural policies?

Submission Timeline

Authors are invited to submit article proposals (maximum 4,000 characters) along with a brief biographical note by 15 December 2024. Please send your submissions to Annamaria Bianco annamaria.bianco@univ-amu.fr and Antonio Pacifico antonio.pacifico@univ-lyon3.fr. Authors can expect to receive responses by the end of the following month.

Final articles, written respecting formatting guidelines in English or in French, should not exceed 45,000 characters and must be submitted by 1 May 2025. Detailed information regarding formatting guidelines and the editorial process can be found at https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/3004.

We expect to publish this issue in the autumn of 2026.