We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Implications of Media: A material reading of nineteenth-century Arabic broadsides.
- Authors
Auji, Hala
- Abstract
This article takes up a material analysis of a set of eleven nineteenth-century Arabic broadsides entitled Nafir Suriyya, published in Beirut by Syrian intellectual Butrus al-Bustani from 1860-1861. Produced in response to the civil wars of 1860 in Mount Lebanon and Damascus (in the Ottoman Syrian provinces), when intercommunal conflicts occurred between different confessional groups, these publications called for unity and cooperation amongst these communities through the framework of “patriotism” (wataniyya) and one’s “love of the homeland” (hubb al-watan). These broadsides have thus played an important role in twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on early nationalist sentiment, particularly a Syro-Lebanese political identity, amongst Arabic-speaking Ottoman denizens. However, the format and visual conventions of these broadsides are oftentimes overlooked or misinterpreted, thus effacing an important layer to understanding Nafir Suriyya’s wider socio-political significance. Addressing these oversights, this study provides a close material reading of the Nafir Suriyya broadsides as examples of a then-new format. Comparative analysis with other contemporaneous public texts, such as Ottoman edicts and proclamations, better clarifies the social and cultural significance of these publications.
- Subjects
ARABIC printing; BROADSIDES; PATRIOTISM; IDENTITY politics; OTTOMAN law; PROCLAMATIONS
- Publication
Visible Language, 2019, Vol 53, Issue 1, p21
- ISSN
0022-2224
- Publication type
Article