The Contemporary Arab Contribution to World Culture: An Arab-Western Dialogue
This book comprises a selection of papers delivered at a research meeting of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS) which took place in Paris in March, 2009. As suggested by its title, it addresses prejudices prevailing not only in Western societies, but also in marginalized ones, especially among their Western-oriented intelligentsia. It is often claimed that there exists no ‘serious’ contribution to world culture that is not based on the Western models that prevail worldwide, especially in the aftermath of globalization. This book challenges the projected image of a dominant West serving as a necessary and indispensable model for a dependent, receptive ‘rest of the world.’ It can be read as a necessary decolonization of today’s human knowledge in all disciplines by taking as an example recent Arab contributions in many areas of human knowledge, from the natural sciences to the political economy or architecture. Other marginalized socio-cultures worldwide, like those of Africa, India, Thailand, Persia, and Ireland, should follow suit in presenting an alternative to the extant globalization of Western norms, by offering a truly equal open exchange of human inventions on a world scale.
This book is part of a series. View the full series, "Towards a really rational World Culture", here.
Magdi Youssef is the founding President of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS). His theoretical reflections on the necessary decolonization of intercultural studies have found widespread attention in Brazil, China, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the Arab world. He has published in six European languages, as well as in Arabic, and some of his latest works are currently being translated into Chinese.
"Youssef asserts that these non-Western societies still have quite a lot to add to world knowledge. However, he wants to address an illusion that exists in the minds of many people, especially among the intelligentsia in non-Western societies, that existing Euro-Western standards and research results constitute an 'ideal' to be followed by all other cultures when dealing with nature and society. In order to be able to realise the objective of the 'Unity of Knowledge', Youssef had to resort to the collective research work of all experts in different disciplines. The author has chosen the approach of an Arab-Western dialogue as a means of questioning and challenging the well-established stereotype that the West must exclusively define scientific and scholarly standards. [...] This is a provocative book that requests discussion throughout. Certainly, contributing to world culture doesn’t mean to "start from scratch" or even to attempt to do so. It means that one tries drawing on solutions specific to one's socio-culture environment in dealing with nature, either physically, socially or artistically."
Al-Ahram Online, 28.06.2018
"Similar to Magdi Youssef’s early and recent work, The Contemporary Arab Contribution to World Culture: An Arab-Western Dialogue is another significant stripe contributing to the holistic fabric of his lifelong academic/intellectual enterprise. The central argument that has preoccupied Youssef since the publication of The Socio-Cultural Interaction Processes between the Arab World and the West in Modern Times (1983) till his latest article/chapter ‘Decolonizing World Literature’ (2015) is that European/Western ‘cultural’ hegemony is precarious to global dialogue and co-existence; it has to be critically demystified and resisted. […] This book is, therefore, a well-rounded endeavour towards that goal, and it will positively entice the significant and weighty discussions it solicits."
Alaaeldin Mahmoud The American University of the Middle East; British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2020
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