Cultural Politics Seminar: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (In Person)
Date and Time
Location
"Arabic’s Frontlines: Language, Race, and Resistance Across Empires"
Speaker:
Annette Lienau, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Contact:
Charles Gaillard
cgaillard@fas.harvard.edu
Chair:
Panagiotis Roilos, Faculty Associate. George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies, Department of the Classics; Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Abstract:
This presentation, based on Annette Lienau’s recently published book Sacred Language, Vernacular Difference (Princeton University Press, 2024), explores how Arabic evolved from a sacred, religious language into a counter-imperial medium during the 19th and 20th centuries as several European colonial powers sought to moderate and suppress its global influence. Drawing historical and literary evidence from French West Africa, British-occupied Egypt, and the Dutch East Indies, the talk traces how Arabic’s marginalization under colonial regimes inspired writers and intellectuals to reclaim it as a symbol of counter-imperial resistance with important transgenerational repercussions.
The presentation will also address how Arabic’s history as an inter-racial language complicated its position in emerging debates over indigeneity, national belonging, and religious pluralism after the fall of European empires. By examining Arabic’s complex ties to race, religion, and counter-imperial writing across Asia and Africa, the talk invites a reconsideration of how Arabic’s legacy as a global language continues to inform the shaping of political and cultural identities transregionally.