Poetry & Print in Lebanon

“Las Casas knows the Indians less well than Cortés, and he loves them more; but they meet in their common policy of assimilation. Knowledge does not imply love, nor the converse; and neither of the two implies, nor is implied by, identification with the other. […] Columbus’s attitude can be described in altogether negative terms: he does not love, does not know, and does not identify himself with the other.” (Todorov, 1984, 185-6)

Identity. Memory. Knowledge. Power. These inextricably connected concepts come to mind often, as I look around the world and attempt to engage the constructed character of the ostensibly natural fit of objects in the social order. (A relevant concept here, as per Luker’s discussion, is what “Bourdieu calls “‘doxa’ - those taken-for-granted ideas that are so much a part of our social world that we rarely even notice them.” (2010, 3)) It concerns me as I experience the much touted info-glut today while being aware that some kinds of information, of knowledge is scarce, non-existent or has been erased completely. Here, I have in mind what scholars have termed the limits of historical knowledge, or the ways in which the subaltern as object is not given a subject-position from which to speak (Prakash, 1994). In turn, memory, as a category of political practice, can best be understood as a site for the contestation or consolidation of identity, and constructions of the past.

Such issues call for an interdisciplinary approach. Luker discusses the importance of such an approach to research today, which brings to my mind the work of Edward Said. In Orientalism reconsidered, he states:

“[There is a] need for greater crossing of boundaries, for greater interventionism in cross-disciplinary activity, a concentrated awareness of the situation political, methodological, social, historical in which intellectual and cultural work is carried out. A clarified political and methodological commitment to the dismantling of systems of domination which since they are collectively maintained must, to adopt and transform some of Gramsci’s phrases, be collectively fought, by mutual siege, war of manoeuvre and war of position.” (1985, 15)

With such questions long in mind, I would love to work at the intersections of a range of disciplines - Book History & Print Culture; Critical Theory; Post-Colonial & Subaltern Studies; and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations - in exploring memory, identity, knowledge production and power in the Middle East. In brief, my research concerns exploring the physical, cultural and technological facets of the trail-blazing periodicals of the modern Arab literary movement in 1950s and 1960s Lebanon.

In particular, I hope to focus on the prestigious Beirut-based Shi’r magazine (شعر مجلة), translated as ‘Poetry’ in English. Launched January 10, 1957, Yusuf al-Khāl was its manager, publisher, editor, and frequent contributor (Al-Sālisīsee, 2004, 68-71). Shi’r ran almost uninterrupted for forty-four issues until 1969, when it halted in the face of the mounting crises engendered by the 1967 Six Day War (ibid). Then the only Arabic-language poetry periodical, Shi’r was a crucial organizing node and ideological tool of the modern Arab literary movement. Its editorial committee included notables such as Adūnīs, while many now famous poets would contribute their work and, often, their time as distributors, editors, and public defenders - all on a voluntary basis!

Indeed, Shi’r was part of a multifaceted socio-cultural, intellectual network, and was produced by al-Khāl’s renowned Shi’r Publishing House. This institution also published many modern Arab poets and writers for the first time, other cultural periodicals like al-Adab magazine (الأدب مجلة), and first-time translations of Euro-American authors. It also introduced a number of key technological print innovations along the way. Intellectuals associated with these initiatives organized a regular Thursday poetry night program, a hub of the fermenting literary revolution, and many other public initiatives. Hence, this movement’s print culture is a rich site for historical scholarly inquiry. A book history lens is especially useful for the study of this fluid and dynamic movement given that it is involved in decentering the principle elements of the production and consumption of a printed text, making them interactive and interdependent, while destabilizing critical interpretation and personal identity in a print culture (Jordan and Pattern, 1995, 11).

In establishing and running this periodical, Yusuf al-Khāl as journalist, writer, poet, and publisher was following in a long line of distinguished personalities from what became the colonial borders of modern Syria and Lebanon, which together constituted historically the cradle of Arab journalism and periodical printing (Ayalon, 1995, 28-31). Such figures include the Syrian born Rizqallah Hasun, who in 1855 Istanbul established the first Arabic-language newspaper, Mi’rat al-Ahwal; the poet Khalil al-Khal who founded the Beirut-based news weekly Hadiqat al-Akhbar in 1861; and the important intellectual Butrus al-Bustani who in 1870 Beirut launched one of the earliest literary magazines, al-Jinan (ibid). After this foundational period, the Arab periodical press would continue to grow and expand until the end of the nineteenth century. In the inter-war years, it underwent alternating periods of decline and revival. The Arab press would truly flourish, however, in the post-WWII period. This series of ruptures and continuities constitute the important historical background to Shi’r and related activities.

In taking up this research project, I have many questions in mind, although I am uncertain which will engage me most as the research unfolds. Some questions include: What social processes, social relations, and technologies were involved in the production and reproduction of this movement’s publications, such as Shi’r? How were tensions over information ownership and control grappled with? How did this new media, with its new distribution channels and new delivery systems, affect traditional means of creating and disseminating information? Can we determine the economic value of the knowledge and its consequences for its production, distribution and ownership, especially given the voluntary labour involved? (Here, it is to be understood that information/knowledge is not to be viewed only from a classical economic lens as commodity. Rather, more recent paradigms elucidate, for example, the tension between information as a public versus private good.) What impact did this emerging information infrastructure have on notions of governance, civic participation, democracy and freedom of expression, during this foundational period in post-Independence Lebanon? How was the new information system defined, conceptualized, developed, evaluated, adapted and sustained? How was Lebanese identity, or that of the modern Arab or intellectual or poet, constructed, contested, negotiated and consolidated in this intellectual milieu? This question is especially pertinent given that pan-Arab nationalists, Lebanese particularists, communists, secularists, Islamists and other political currents participated in Shi’r and related activities, even as partisan tensions mounted, and civil war loomed. What does the materiality of the publication tell us about this period? Where was it read, and how? How was authorial and intellectual legitimacy defined and negotiated?

… many questions indeed! I think for me this research would be one of discovery, surveying the archives of al-Khāl’s publishing house in Beirut to find out what this print culture can tell us about that crucial period in Lebanese history, and about ourselves today. 

References

Al-Sālisīsee, Jāk Amātāyīs. (2004). Yūsuf al-Khāl wa-majallatuhu "Shiʻr" [Yūsuf al-Khāl and

His Magazine “Shi’r”]. Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Nahār bi-al-taʻāwun maʻa al-Maʻhad al-Almānī lil-Abḥāth al-Sharqīyah.

Ayalon, Ami. (1995). The Press in the Arab Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jordan, John O. and Pattern, Robert L., eds. (1995). Literature in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-

Century British Publishing and Reading Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Luker, Kristin. (2010). Salsa Dancing in the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Prakash, Gyan. (1994). Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism. The American Historical

Review, 99(5): 1475-1490.

Said, Edward. (1985). Orientalism reconsidered. Race & Class, 27(2): 1-15.

Todorov, Tzvetan. (1984). The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other.  New York:

Harper & Row Publishers.