KUWAIT'S MODERNITY IN CRISIS: phantasms and memory.
This article explores the crisis of Kuwait's modernity by way of postcards from the post-oil period, the 1950s to the 1970s. It argues that the disjuncture between the imagery depicted in the postcards and remembering, on the one hand, and current images of "reality" and collective forgetting, on th...
| Publicado en: | Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities Vol. 30; no. 2; pp. 117 - 133 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Apr2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=184789163&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 184789163 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0969725X 35M jtl: Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities issn: 0969725X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2025 vid: 30 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 184789163 10.1080/0969725X.2025.2485599 ppf: 117 ppct: 16 formats: tig: atl: KUWAIT'S MODERNITY IN CRISIS: phantasms and memory. aug: au: Al-Nakib, Mai su: Crises Modernity Memory Postcards Philosophy sug: subj: Crises Modernity Memory Postcards Philosophy keyword: crisis-as-critique Kuwait memory modernity phantasm postcards ab: This article explores the crisis of Kuwait's modernity by way of postcards from the post-oil period, the 1950s to the 1970s. It argues that the disjuncture between the imagery depicted in the postcards and remembering, on the one hand, and current images of "reality" and collective forgetting, on the other, can initiate a productive crisis of understanding toward a critical reconsideration of this period of Kuwait's history. I examine how these postcards construct a phantasmic national narrative of Kuwait ignored today. This early phantasm of the nation corresponds to the socio-political agenda during the post-oil period generally recognized as Kuwait's modernity. Next, I consider some of the conditions that have facilitated the forgetting of this phantasm, including the crisis of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990; the demolition of the urban environment; the decline in education standards; and conservative regional pressures. Further, I consider the function served today by forgetting the way these early postcards pushed the limits of the national imagination. Forgetting the phantasm makes it possible to construct a historical narrative that elides the national image of Kuwait as open, modern, efficient, democratic, and "Westernized" (problematic as such descriptors might be). In so doing, it restricts national imagery to religious, tribalist, and traditionalist representations currently circulating as historical "truth." As unnuanced and Orientalist as such Manichean oppositions are, they bring the overlooked stakes of forgetting into high relief, potentially to the point of a productive critical crisis (or crisis-as-critique). I conclude that such a divergent – not to say nostalgic – counter-memory of the past, triggered by the forgotten phantasm in postcards, might make it possible for Kuwaitis to better register the ongoing failures of the state and the threats such repeated failures may pose to its survival – and thereby to envision more humane and sustainable alternatives. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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