Nostalgia permeates literary and expressive culture in the Arab world. It reflects all the paradoxes and contradictions of Arab modernity. Nostalgia appears as an expression of power and powerlessness. It serves as a mode of inclusion and exclusion. It links personal to social, even monumental memory. It is both urbane and pastoral. It is voiced from exile, and but also from those who never left, but feel that something crucial has left them. This panel, inspired by an ArteEast Online quarterly issue about
Arab Nostalgia edited by Christa Salamandra, will explore diverse expressions of and against this sentiment. Panelists are Deborah Kapchan (NYU) Christa Salamandra (Lehman College), Suhail Shadud (writer), and Jonathan Shannon (Hunter College).
Reception to Follow
