The arrival of nationalism

Dr. Esther Webman

One of the ideologies brought to the Middle East in the 19th century by European forces was nationalism, which spread across the Arab world, gaining prominence mainly in the early 20th century. In the second week of the course we saw how the emergence of nationalism in 19th century Europe brought with it questions of national identity and of otherness and belonging.

How did nationalist ideas influence the identities and self-perception of peoples living in the Islamic and Arab world and how did they affect the perception of the Jews?

References

• Litvak, Meir, ed., Constructing Nationalism in Iran: From the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (London: Routledge, 2017).

• Porath, Yehoshua, “Anti-Zionist and Anti-Jewish Ideology in the Arab Nationalist Movement,” in Shmuel Almog, ed., Antisemitism Through the Ages (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989), pp. 217 – 226.

• Tibi, Bassam, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd expanded edition, (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1997).

• Webman, Esther, “From the Damascus Blood Libel to the “Arab Spring”: The Evolution of Arab Antisemitism,” Antisemitism Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 157 – 206.

• Wien, Peter, Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East (London: Routledge, 2017).