The Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East - (Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities) by Anna Ball & Karim Mattar

About the Book

The first collection of essays on this subject, this Edinburgh Companion assembles some of the world's foremost postcolonialists to explore the critical, theoretical and disciplinary possibilities that inquiry into this region opens for postcolonial studies.

Book Synopsis

This Edinburgh Companion seeks to develop a postcolonial framework for addressing the Middle East. The first collection of essays on this subject, it assembles some of the world's foremost postcolonialists to explore the critical, theoretical and disciplinary possibilities that inquiry into this region opens for postcolonial studies.
Throughout its twenty-four chapters, its focus is on literary and cultural critique. It draws on texts and contexts from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries as case studies, and deploys the concept of 'post/colonial modernity' to reveal the enduring impact of colonial and imperial power on the shaping of the region. And it covers a wide and significant range of political, social, and cultural issues in the Middle East during that period - including the heritage of Orientalism in the region; the roots and contemporary branches of the Israel-Palestine conflict; colonial history, state formation and cultures of resistance in Egypt, Turkey, the Maghreb and the wider Arab world; the clash of tradition and modernity in regional and transnational expressions of Islam; the politics of gender and sexuality in the Arab world; the ongoing crises in Libya, Iraq, Iran and Syria; the Arab Spring; and the Middle Eastern refugee crisis in Europe.

Review Quotes

The Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East is to be welcomed. The subjects covered are expertly handled and contain a wealth of material on areas of study hitherto well researched but not brought together in this specific context.--Geoffrey Nash, School of African and Oriental Studies "The Muslim World Book Review, 40:2, 2020"

By bringing the Middle East and postcolonial studies into critical conversation, this capacious volume urges us to rethink both, and gives the tools with which to do so. The wide-ranging and thought-provoking essays examine how the literature and culture of the region critically interrogate and illuminate the dynamics of colonialism, modern imperialism and global capitalism. This is a volume that will become an important landmark in the field.-- "Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania"

About the Author

Anna Ball is Senior Lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University.
Karim Mattar is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder.