FADI BARDAWIL | Arab Marxism, the New Left & Political Realities | Conversations

The afikra Podcast

Learn about Arab Marxism, radical patriarchal politics, and Lebanon’s political economy over the last century in this conversation with professor Fadi Bardawil from Duke University. Starting with his book “Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation”, Professor Bardawil maps out the history of the Political Left in Lebanon and more broadly in the region, pointing us to key moments over the past century. We also touch on the New Left, Lebanon’s new political realities and the significance of October 17th as a moment of feminist resurgence.

Fadi Bardawil is assistant professor of contemporary Arab cultures in the Department of Asian Studies and Middle East Studies at Duke university. He also regularly writes for Megaphone, an online independent media platform based in Lebanon. His work is interdisciplinary, combining political anthropology, critical theory and intellectual history. In particular, Bardawil focuses on Lebanon investigating articulations of cultural production and political practice.

About “Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation”:

The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries – the 1960s Arab New Left – addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and non-emancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation.

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afikra Conversations is our flagship program featuring long-form interviews with experts from academia, art, ‎and media who are helping document and/or shape the histories and cultures of the Arab world through their ‎work. Our hope is that by having the guest share their expertise and story, the community still walks away with new ‎found curiosity - and maybe some good recommendations about new nerdy rabbit holes to dive into head first. ‎Following the interview there is a moderated town-hall style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience ‎on Zoom.‎

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afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity.

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