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AbstractHow was Persian literature disciplinized in the twentieth century? This article addresses this question by focusing on twentieth-century Afghanistan and outlining the sociohistorical processes that helped to transform scholarly and literary production into a social enterprise. A major outcome of these underexamined processes was the making of Dāʾerat ol-maʿāref-e Āryānā (1949–79) in Kabul, the first modern encyclopedia produced in Persian. The article explains the multilayered significance of Āryānā's literary taxonomies, reading practices, and historiographical models that reified Persian literature as an object of academic study and national veneration in Afghanistan. A close reading of Āryānā's account of Persian literary history illustrates its complex relationship with both Iranian and Afghan nationalisms of the 1940s and 1950s and its contributors' adherence to a modern methodology. The present study places Āryānā squarely within a transregional ecosystem that brought about the institutionalization of literature in Persian-speaking lands.

Michael Keren traces the political lives and messages of some of the twentieth century's greatest literary characters in this insightful and jargon-free book of literary criticism. Hans Castorp (Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain), Joseph K. (Franz Kafka's The Trial), John the Savage (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), Winston Smith (George Orwell's 1984), Ralph (William Golding's Lord of the Flies), Merusault (Albert Camus's The Stranger), Ida Ramundo (Elsa Morante's History), and Chauncey Gardiner (Jerzy Kosinski's Being There) participate in ideological, technological, and organizational projects of the twentieth century. Keren observes these infamous characters' behaviours and attitudes while they struggle through world wars, the rise and fall of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, the development of the atomic bomb, de-colonization, the Cold War, and globalization. Here is a refreshing contribution to civil society theory that makes a pioneering effort to cross the boundaries between politics, literature, and culture. A study of the human condition via literature, The Citizen's Voice expounds the key features of a "good citizen" while offering a perfect discussion piece for courses in political theory, politics and literature, and history. ; Yes

The Chinese Chameleon Revisited -- Staging Chinese Presence in the Early Twentieth Century -- Orientalism and Counterhegemonic Energies -- Unveiling the Harem -- The Politics of Intercultural Representation and the Potentiality of Cultural Hybridity -- Conclusion.

"Qur'anic Invocations: Narrative Temporalities in Twentieth Century Maghrebi Literature" investigates the dialogic relationship between literary and theological discourse in modern Arabophone and Francophone literature of the Maghreb. The novels of al-Tahir Wattar, Assia Djebar, Driss Chraibi and Mahmud al-Mas'adi critically explore the complex colonial histories and conflicted articulations of national identity, language and literature in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. While the 130-year French imperial presence in the region left an indelible cultural and linguistic imprint on the Maghreb, nationalist attempts at homogenizing these countries under a shared Arab and Islamic heritage were equally divisive. This dissertation examines the intersecting discourses of nationalism, modernity and postcolonialism in fiction of the late colonial and post-independence period between 1945 and 1985. I posit that these novels engage with Islamic Thought in order to complicate, nuance or challenge the temporality of these grand historical narratives. In the process, however, they trouble the boundary between 'religious' and 'secular' discourses. In large part, this confluence reflects the very notion of 'Adab' that underwrites both religious and literary discourse in the Arab literary tradition. A concept that historically denoted the moral dimensions of individual and social conduct in the Islamic sciences, 'Adab' also signifies the intellectual pursuit of knowledge and, more currently, the corpus of belle lettres. For while they employ Qur'anic symbology, imagery and motifs, these texts also intervene into debates on the apostolic tradition of hadith, Islamic exegesis, history and jurisprudence. Further, they reimagine the novel in dialogue with and opposition to Arabic and French literary as well as historical discourses. These elements are reflected in the heteroglossic and polyphonic structure of these texts, which undermines historical teleologies and myths of origins.My first chapter, "Revolutionary Eschatology: Islam and the End of Time in Wattar's al-Zilzal" [The Earthquake, 1974], analyzes Wattar's mobilization of eschatological imagery to question the ideological underpinnings of Algerian nationalist discourse. I explore al-Zilzal's critical engagement with the rhetoric of Arabism and Islamism in post-revolutionary state politics. In my second chapter, "Heterodoxies of History: Algerian National Identity in Djebar's L'Amour, la fantasia" [Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, 1985], I investigate the interweaving of the French colonial occupation and settlement of Algeria with the Arabo-Islamic conquest of the region in the seventh century. I posit that the novel's polyphonic structure and resistance to a single authoritative voice challenges religious, ethnic and linguistic narratives of origins, as well as the politics of transmission and interpretation in Islam. The third chapter, "The Thin Line of Imperialism: Parsing the Qur'an in Chraibi's Le passé simple" [The Simple Past, 1954], examines the controversial representation of French imperialism and Islamic patriarchy as mutually imbricated ideologies. I argue that Chraibi offers an alternative mode of historical and literary temporality in the motifs of the passé simple and la ligne mince. My final chapter, "The Poetic Landscape of Islamic Thought: Creation and Existence in al-Mas'adi's Mawlid al-Nisyan" [The Genesis of Forgetfulness, 1945], explores the novel's fusion of Sufism, Existentialism, Islamic Thought and Arabic literary discourse. Al-Mas'adi's ethical literary project, I suggest, reads artistic representation as a mode of creation.

Michael Keren traces the political lives and messages of some of the twentieth century's greatest literary characters in this insightful and jargon-free book of literary criticism. Hans Castorp (Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain), Joseph K. (Franz Kafka's The Trial), John the Savage (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), Winston Smith (George Orwell's 1984), Ralph (William Golding's Lord of the Flies), Merusault (Albert Camus's The Stranger), Ida Ramundo (Elsa Morante's History), and Chauncey Gardiner (Jerzy Kosinski's Being There) participate in ideological, technological, and organizational projects of the twentieth century. Keren observes these infamous characters' behaviours and attitudes while they struggle through world wars, the rise and fall of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, the development of the atomic bomb, de-colonization, the Cold War, and globalization. Here is a refreshing contribution to civil society theory that makes a pioneering effort to cross the boundaries between politics, literature, and culture. A study of the human condition via literature, The Citizen's Voice expounds the key features of a "good citizen" while offering a perfect discussion piece for courses in political theory, politics and literature, and history.

Michael Keren traces the political lives and messages of some of the twentieth century's greatest literary characters in this insightful and jargon-free book of literary criticism. He observes the infamous characters ranging from Joseph K from Franz Kafka's The Trial to Ralph from William Golding's Lord of the Flies to Chauncey Gardiner from Jerzy Kosinski's Being There and beyond while they struggle through their lives and world events. The Citizen's Voice is a refreshing contribution to civil society theory that makes a pioneering effort to cross the boundaries between politics, literature, and culture. A study of the human condition via literature this book expounds the key features of a good citizen while offering a perfect discussion piece for courses in political theory, politics and literature, and history.

Abstract
The literary marketplace underwent considerable changes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as industrialization, new readership and wars shaped and influenced the publishing industry. The attempts made by publishers to approach this new market with cheap books and high-quality literature varied. This article examines Reclam, a German publisher, as a case study for marketing between the late nineteenth century and 1930 in order to demonstrate that there was money to be made with revolutionary ideas such as the book-automat or an export library. Reclam tried to find gaps and use movements for their own profit, which was a successful and trend-setting endeavour.