"Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940

The Phoenician past, historians have long argued, was the preserve of Lebanese nationalists who sought to trace the genealogy of their darling state into the distant past in order to articulate a distinctive identity for Lebanon reflecting their religious particularism and socio-economic interests....

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Main Author: Andrew Arsan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: North Carolina State University, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies 2022-02-01
Series:Mashriq & Mahjar
Subjects:
Online Access:https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/15
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author Andrew Arsan
author_facet Andrew Arsan
author_sort Andrew Arsan
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description The Phoenician past, historians have long argued, was the preserve of Lebanese nationalists who sought to trace the genealogy of their darling state into the distant past in order to articulate a distinctive identity for Lebanon reflecting their religious particularism and socio-economic interests. By contrast to this diachronic and often teleological approach, tracking the evolution of national consciousness, this article suggests a synchronic reading of the ways late Ottoman literati used the ancient past as an instrument of political debate and social reflection. The region’s public men, this article contends, found in the Phoenician past a soothing precedent for the massive migrations the Arabic-speaking Eastern Mediterranean witnessed from the 1880s onwards—movements which prompted much fraught debate and discussion. Contemporary displacements, in such a reading, were but the product of ancient predispositions. Only in the wake of the First World War was the ancient past pressed into national service.
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spelling doaj.art-885734ffb2d54c4894fada64322670872022-12-22T02:11:45ZengNorth Carolina State University, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora StudiesMashriq & Mahjar2169-44352022-02-011210.24847/11i2013.15"Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940Andrew Arsan The Phoenician past, historians have long argued, was the preserve of Lebanese nationalists who sought to trace the genealogy of their darling state into the distant past in order to articulate a distinctive identity for Lebanon reflecting their religious particularism and socio-economic interests. By contrast to this diachronic and often teleological approach, tracking the evolution of national consciousness, this article suggests a synchronic reading of the ways late Ottoman literati used the ancient past as an instrument of political debate and social reflection. The region’s public men, this article contends, found in the Phoenician past a soothing precedent for the massive migrations the Arabic-speaking Eastern Mediterranean witnessed from the 1880s onwards—movements which prompted much fraught debate and discussion. Contemporary displacements, in such a reading, were but the product of ancient predispositions. Only in the wake of the First World War was the ancient past pressed into national service. https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/15Eastern MediterraneanDiasporamigrationHistory-writingdiasporaPhoenicianism
spellingShingle Andrew Arsan
"Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
Mashriq & Mahjar
Eastern Mediterranean
Diaspora
migration
History-writing
diaspora
Phoenicianism
title "Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
title_full "Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
title_fullStr "Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
title_full_unstemmed "Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
title_short "Citizens of the World . . . Who Stopped on Every Shore:" Eastern Mediterranean Migration, Social Thought, and the Diasporic Uses of the Phoenician Past, c. 1880–1940
title_sort citizens of the world who stopped on every shore eastern mediterranean migration social thought and the diasporic uses of the phoenician past c 1880 1940
topic Eastern Mediterranean
Diaspora
migration
History-writing
diaspora
Phoenicianism
url https://lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mashriq/article/view/15
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