"When All this Revolution Melts into Air: The Disenchantment of Levantine Marxist Intellectuals" by Fadi A. Bardawil

Fadi A. Bardawil

Deposited 2010

Abstract
The state of Levantine Marxists today is one of exhaustion on both the political and intellectual fronts. Things have not always been this way. In the 1960's through the 1970's the Leftist scene was a vibrant one in terms of critical intellectual production and political activity. Today, what remains of Leftist political parties is sclerotic and the Marxist political-theoretical ground that brought together a quest for social justice, national liberation and the building of a modern society under the banner of emancipation from economic exploitation, colonialism and the yoke of tradition, has collapsed. This dissertation examines Marxism as an intellectual tradition and political practice and its ebbing away in the contemporary Levant. It does so through focusing on the political trajectories and ideological transformations of a generation (born circa. 1940) of - mostly Lebanese –militant intellectuals, who became prominent public intellectuals after exiting from organized political activity. This investigation is carried out through an analysis of published articles, mimeographed party bulletins, autobiographical fragments and theoretical treatises, as well as with the help of extended ‘life history’ interviews. This project provides first, an account of political ideological shifts revealing the dynamic relationship between an intellectual's thought, political party affiliations, and life experiences. Second, through focusing on the early disenchantment of Waddah Charara, an ex-theoretical tenor of the Lebanese Left, it examines the transformations in the figure of the intellectual and the practices of critique in the wake of the extinction of revolutionary projects. Finally, it explores the articulation of Metropolitan and Levantine intellectual fields of cultural production through focusing, first on the travels of individuals and texts during the high tide of Marxist militancy, and second on arguments surrounding Edward Said's Orientalism (1978).