Tarek El-Ariss

This book project examines the way modes of confrontation, circulation, and exhibitionism shape and engender new writing practices and critiques of power in the Arab world and beyond. It argues that literary production and political change are grounded in a pervasive culture of scandal, hacking, and leaks, which foregrounds and coincides with recent Arab uprisings. Conceptually, the project moves from the subject of Freudian lack and Hegelian self-consciousness to a leaking subject who reveals, contests, and writes through chaotic and involuntary yet highly political means or affects. Challenging frameworks of interpretation informed by the narrative of modernity extending from the European Enlightenment to anti-colonial struggles, the project investigates the emergence of post-national models of subjectivity, community, and cultural production in the digital age.