“A World of Tomorrow”: Diaspora Intellectuals and Liberal Thought in the 1950s
- 2 April 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Journal of Palestine Studies
- Vol. 50 (2), 92-107
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919x.2021.1889875
Abstract
This article contributes to Palestinian intellectual history by discussing the lives and writings of three diaspora intellectuals during the transitional period of the 1950s: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Abdul-Latif Tibawi, and Nicola Ziadeh. I argue that they fused a conservative acceptance of state authority and avoidance of radical politics with a liberal understanding of nationalism and scholarship, including freedom, secularism, and objectivity. Without a Palestinian nation-state, their participation in the imagined futures of Pan-Arabism and decolonization meant avoiding radical leftist political movements. Instead, they advanced literature and history, surviving in the diaspora as liberals during Pan-Arabism’s transition from a revolutionary goal to a state ideology.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- A Primer for a New Terrain: Palestinian Schooling in Jordan, 1950Journal of Palestine Studies, 2018
- Persevering through Colonial Transition: Nazareth's Palestinian Residents after 1948Journal of Palestine Studies, 2016