''Mawaqif'' (also variously spelled ''Mawakif''; "Positions" in English) was a cultural magazine founded in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

in 1968 by

Adunis Ali Ahmad Said Esber (, Levantine Arabic, North Levantine ; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis ( ), is a Syrian people, Syrian poet, essayist and translator. Maya Jaggi, writing for The Guardian stated "He led a mod ...

. Sharabi, Hisham. “Cultural Critics of Contemporary Arab Society.” ''

Arab Studies Quarterly ''Arab Studies Quarterly'' (''ASQ'') is an English-language academic journal devoted to Arabist studies. It was established in 1979 by the Professors Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. They envisioned the journal to be a platform for academic res ...

'' 9, no. 1 (1987), 3. It ran until 1994. Among its editors were

Khalida Said Khalida Said (Arabic: خاليدة سعيد; alternate spellings Khalida Saeed, Khalida Sa'id) is a Syrian-origin author and literary critic. She has taught and published extensively on Arabic literature and culture since 1957. Early life and back ...

Hisham Sharabi Hisham Sharabi () (1927 Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine – 2005 Beirut, Lebanon) was a Palestinian historian and writer. He was Professor Emeritus of History and Umar al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture at Georgetown University, where he was a specialis ...

, Halim Barakat, Elias Khoury, Kamal Boullata, and

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...

Reception and legacy

It was described by

as situated on the vanguard of a "new critical movement" at that time in Arab thought. Another scholar said that the magazine "delved into a reassessment of the political style of the two decades that had passed and of the very language and vocabulary of politics of the time." Prof. Sabry Hafez, as part of a historical overview on cultural journals in Arabic, said of the magazine:

"In its early years in Beirut, before the
Lebanese civil war The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...
, it published some of the best creative and critical output of Arab culture, and raised in its subsequent issues—published from London in the late 1980s and early 1990s—some of the significant issues of modernism in literature and critical theory. These three journals 'Mawaqif'' alongside ''Shi'r'' and ''Hiwar (magazine)">Hiwar''">html" ;"title="Shi'r.html" ;"title="'Mawaqif'' alongside ''Shi'r">'Mawaqif'' alongside ''Shi'r'' and ''Hiwar (magazine)">Hiwar''initiated a rupture in the previously integrated cultural field, ended its Pan-Arabism">pan-Arab Pan-Arabism () is a pan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of all Arab people in a single nation-state, consisting of all Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is ref ...

Reception and legacy

References