Hamid Dabashi, “The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism”

THE ARAB SPRING: THE END OF POSTCOLONIALISM

A discussion with Hamid Dabashi

Monday, April 16, 2012  at 7.30 pm

The Proshansky Auditorium

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue

Free and open to the public

In this landmark book, Hamid Dabashi argues that the revolutionary uprisings that have engulfed multiple countries and political climes from Morocco to Iran and from Syria to Yemen, were driven by a ‘Delayed Defiance’ – a point of rebellion against domestic tyranny and globalized disempowerment alike that signifies no less than the end of Postcolonialism. Sketching a new geography of liberation, Dabashi shows how the Arab Spring has altered the geopolitics of the region so radically that we must begin re-imagining the moral map of ‘the Middle East’ afresh.

HAMID DABASHI is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. His books include Authority in Islam (1989); Theology of Discontent (1993); Truth and Narrative (1999); Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001); Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2000); Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema (2007); Iran: A People Interrupted (2007); and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema (2006). His most recent works are Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire (Routledge, 2008) and Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in Time of Terror (Transaction Publishers, 2009).

Discussants:

DAVID HARVEY, Director, the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

ANTHONY ALESSANDRINI, Editor at Jadaliyya.com and Associate Professor of English at Kinsborough Community College. In 2012-2013 he will be a faculty fellow at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics.

Earlier on this evening at 6.30 in the James Gallery, Alessandro Petti will explore new forms of political action and association – collective protests —  in the Middle East and around the world. Details here.

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