Title of Dissertation

A Radically New Age? Rupture and Continuity in the Arabic Concept of Modernity

Summary of the project

This dissertation proposes a conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) of ḥadātha in modern Arab thought. By tracing the semantic shifts of the concept across time, this study seeks to move beyond the prevailing paradigms of universalist modernity and cultural relativism. Instead, it emphasizes conceptual entanglements and local dynamics, focusing on continuities and ruptures as well as the embeddedness of concepts in situated discursive traditions.

Abdel Rahman Shaheen is a member of the Einstein Visiting Fellowship project led by Mohammed A. Bamyeh (University of Pittsburgh) in collaboration with Florian Zemmin (Freie Universität Berlin). Based at BGSMCS, the project investigates how sociological concepts have been used and understood across different historical and cultural contexts, with the aim of producing a critical, comparative lexicon of 60 key terms in Arabic, English, and French.