Faust without the devil? The interplay of technology and culture in Saudi Arabia

Middle East Journal

Volumn 51, Issue 3, 1997, Pages

  Elmusa, Sharif S ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0040090586     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Mansour al-Hazimi, "The Nightingale's Triptych," translated by Olive Kenny and David Wright, in Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia (New York: Kegan Paul International; published jointly with King Saud University, Riyadh, 1988), pp. 385-91.
2. See, for example, Henry H. Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), p. 219.
3. This section draws on a recent critical review of the debate over technology's role in society which is available in Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See also, Albert Borgmann "Technology and Democracy," in Michael Kraft and Norman Vig, eds., Technology and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 54-74; Arthur Krober, Technology and the Canadian Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Norman Vig, "Technology, Philosophy, and the State: An Overview," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 1-32; and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1977).
4. This section draws on a recent critical review of the debate over technology's role in society which is available in Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See also, Albert Borgmann "Technology and Democracy," in Michael Kraft and Norman Vig, eds., Technology and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 54-74; Arthur Krober, Technology and the Canadian Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Norman Vig, "Technology, Philosophy, and the State: An Overview," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 1-32; and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1977).
5. This section draws on a recent critical review of the debate over technology's role in society which is available in Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See also, Albert Borgmann "Technology and Democracy," in Michael Kraft and Norman Vig, eds., Technology and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 54-74; Arthur Krober, Technology and the Canadian Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Norman Vig, "Technology, Philosophy, and the State: An Overview," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 1-32; and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1977).
6. This section draws on a recent critical review of the debate over technology's role in society which is available in Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See also, Albert Borgmann "Technology and Democracy," in Michael Kraft and Norman Vig, eds., Technology and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 54-74; Arthur Krober, Technology and the Canadian Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Norman Vig, "Technology, Philosophy, and the State: An Overview," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 1-32; and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1977).
7. This section draws on a recent critical review of the debate over technology's role in society which is available in Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See also, Albert Borgmann "Technology and Democracy," in Michael Kraft and Norman Vig, eds., Technology and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 54-74; Arthur Krober, Technology and the Canadian Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Norman Vig, "Technology, Philosophy, and the State: An Overview," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 1-32; and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1977).
8. The two most well-known champions of this view are Jacque Ellul in his The Technological Society, translated by J.W. Wilkinson (New York: Vintage, 1964); and Martin Heideger in his The Question Concerning Technology, translated by W. Lovitt (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).
9. The two most well-known champions of this view are Jacque Ellul in his The Technological Society, translated by J.W. Wilkinson (New York: Vintage, 1964); and Martin Heideger in his The Question Concerning Technology, translated by W. Lovitt (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).
10. This school includes among its advocates Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse. See, for example, Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); and David Noble, Forces of Production (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
11. This school includes among its advocates Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse. See, for example, Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); and David Noble, Forces of Production (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
12. This school includes among its advocates Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse. See, for example, Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); and David Noble, Forces of Production (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
13. Don Ihde, Technology and the Life World (Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 1990), pp. 124-61.
14. Ibid., p. 128, citing Joseph Needham.
15. See discussion in Langdon Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics," in Kraft and Vig, eds., Technology and Politics, pp. 33-53.
16. Ihde, Technology and the Life World, p. 128.
17. See, for example, Eleanor Abdella Doumato, "Saudi Arabia," in John Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Laraine Newhouse Carter, "Historical Setting," in Richard F. Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study (Washington, DC: The American University, Foreign Area Studies; for the Department of the Army, 1984), pp. 1-57; and P.A. Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment," in Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study, pp. 133-200.
18. See, for example, Eleanor Abdella Doumato, "Saudi Arabia," in John Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Laraine Newhouse Carter, "Historical Setting," in Richard F. Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study (Washington, DC: The American University, Foreign Area Studies; for the Department of the Army, 1984), pp. 1-57; and P.A. Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment," in Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study, pp. 133-200.
19. See, for example, Eleanor Abdella Doumato, "Saudi Arabia," in John Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Laraine Newhouse Carter, "Historical Setting," in Richard F. Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study (Washington, DC: The American University, Foreign Area Studies; for the Department of the Army, 1984), pp. 1-57; and P.A. Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment," in Nyrop, ed., Saudi Arabia: A Country Study, pp. 133-200.
20. Doumato, "Saudi Arabia," p. 5.
21. Hamza Bogary, The Sheltered Quarter: A Tale of a Boyhood in Mecca, translated by Olive Kenny and Jeremy Reed (Austin: University of Texas Press, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, published jointly with the Project for Translation from Arabic, hereinafter PROTA, 1991).
22. Bob Abdrabboh, Saudi Arabia: Forces of Modernization (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1984), p. 51.
23. Bogary, The Sheltered Quarter, p. 68.
24. The examples of how various technologies have been employed are mainly from, Abdrabboh, Saudi Arabia: Forces of Modernization; Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society; Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment;" and Milton Viorst, "The Storm and the Citadel," Foreign Affairs 75. no. 1 (1996), pp. 93-107.
25. The examples of how various technologies have been employed are mainly from, Abdrabboh, Saudi Arabia: Forces of Modernization; Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society; Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment;" and Milton Viorst, "The Storm and the Citadel," Foreign Affairs 75. no. 1 (1996), pp. 93-107.
26. The examples of how various technologies have been employed are mainly from, Abdrabboh, Saudi Arabia: Forces of Modernization; Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society; Kluck, "The Society and Its Environment;" and Milton Viorst, "The Storm and the Citadel," Foreign Affairs 75. no. 1 (1996), pp. 93-107.
27. Cited in Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 47. Berman gives a brilliant interpretation of Modernism as a whole and of Goethe's Faust as a metaphor for " the Tragedy of Development."
28. Cited in Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 47. Berman gives a brilliant interpretation of Modernism as a whole and of Goethe's Faust as a metaphor for " the Tragedy of Development."
29. Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society, p. 67.
30. Al-Hazimi, "The Nightingale's Triptych," p. 391.
31. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Badiyat al-Dhulumat (Desert of Darkness), vol. 5 of the serial Mudun al-Malh (Cities of Salt), which is also the title of vol. 1 (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1989), pp. 284-85. The serial is an epic that has been interpreted by critics as a fictional chronicle of the rise of the House of Sa'ud and of the contemporary Saudi state.
32. Muhammad al-Thubayti, "A Page from a Bedouin Notebook," in Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia, p. 225.
33. Qasim Haddad, "The Rider," in Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia, p. 103.
34. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
35. Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt, translated by Peter Theroux (New York: Vintage International, 1989), pp. 455-57.
36. Zayd Mutee' Dammaj, The Hostage (New York: Interlink Books; published jointly with PROTA, 1984), pp. 61-62.
37. Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey, p. 160.
38. For an historical explanation as to why the camel had originally replaced the wheel in the Middle East and remained until relatively recently the main means of transportation, see Richard Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
39. For example, Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society, p. 21, reports that Saudis not infrequently drive without lights at night and on the wrong side of the road.
40. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Al-Ukhdud (The Trench) (3rd printing) (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr). The novel also has been translated into English by Peter Theroux, The Trench (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991).
41. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Al-Ukhdud (The Trench) (3rd printing) (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr). The novel also has been translated into English by Peter Theroux, The Trench (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991).
42. See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know the World and Himself (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), pp. 26-53; David Landes, A Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University, 1983), pp. 67-82; Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934).
43. See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know the World and Himself (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), pp. 26-53; David Landes, A Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University, 1983), pp. 67-82; Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934).
44. See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know the World and Himself (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), pp. 26-53; David Landes, A Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University, 1983), pp. 67-82; Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934).
45. Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p. 17.
46. Boorstin, The Discoverers, p. 36.
47. Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p. 16.
48. Ibid., p. 14.
49. Albers, Saudi Arabia: Technocrats in a Traditional Society, p. 69, describing a meeting at King Fand University of Petroleum & Minerals, in Dhahran, where he taught.
50. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Taqasim al-Layl wa al-Nahar (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1989). The novel has been translated into English by Peter Theroux as Variations of Night and Day (New York: Pantheon Books).
51. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Taqasim al-Layl wa al-Nahar (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1989). The novel has been translated into English by Peter Theroux as Variations of Night and Day (New York: Pantheon Books).
52. Munif, Taqasim al-Layl wa al-Nahar, p. 270.
53. 'Abd al-Rahman Munif, Al-Manbat, (The Breeding Grounds) (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1989).
54. Nadhim Shafiq al-Ghabra, "Al-Shakhsiyya al-Khalijiyya wa Tahaddiyya al-Numuw," (The Gulf Personality and the Challenge of Development) in Shu'un Ijtima'iyya (United Arab Emirates) 35, (Autumn 1993), p. 195.
55. Husain Ali Husain, "The Arrival," translated by May Jayyusi and Elizabeth Fernea, in Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia, p. 392.
56. See Leo Marx, "The Puzzle of Anti-Urbanism in American Literature," in Leo Marx, The Pilot and the Passenger: Essays on Literature, Technology, and Culture in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 208-27. Marx argues, controversially, that the hostility to the city in many American literary works is apparent, not real, and that such works ought to be read as metaphors against particular socio-economic conditions and associated cultures or values, not as representations of the city.
57. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, "Preface" in Jayyusi, ed., The Literature of Modern Arabia, pp. 32-34. It is widely agreed that indeed modern Arab poets have been greatly influenced by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.
58. Ibrahim al-Nasir, "Disappointment," translated by Sharif S. Elmusa and Thomas G. Ezzy, in ibid., p. 416.
59. Ibrahim al-Nasir, "Disappointment," translated by Sharif S. Elmusa and Thomas G. Ezzy, in ibid., p. 416.
60. Ibid., p. 417.
61. Khalil al-Fuzay', "The Storm," translated by Salwa Jabsheh and Christopher Tingley, in ibid., p. 368.
62. Khalil al-Fuzay', "The Storm," translated by Salwa Jabsheh and Christopher Tingley, in ibid., p. 368.
63. Khalil al-Fuzay', "Scattered Voices," translated by Ahdaf Soueif and Thomas G. Ezzy, in ibid., p. 366.
64. Khalil al-Fuzay', "Scattered Voices," translated by Ahdaf Soueif and Thomas G. Ezzy, in ibid., p. 366.
65. Al-Fuzay', "The Storm," pp. 368-70.
66. Al-Fuzay', "Scattered Voices," p. 365.
67. Ibid.
68. Abd al-Hameed Ahmad, "The Palm Tree Said to the Sea," translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley, in ibid., pp. 284-90.
69. Abd al-Hameed Ahmad, "The Palm Tree Said to the Sea," translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley, in ibid., pp. 284-90.
70. See, for example, Ibrahim Rashid and Esher Ibrahim Shaheen, Saudi Arabia: All You Need to Know (Joplin, MO: International Institute of Technology, 1995); and Bandar bin Sultan, "American Leadership and Understanding of Islam Are Key for New World Order," Al-Hewar (Washington, DC: 1993), p. 6.
71. See, for example, Ibrahim Rashid and Esher Ibrahim Shaheen, Saudi Arabia: All You Need to Know (Joplin, MO: International Institute of Technology, 1995); and Bandar bin Sultan, "American Leadership and Understanding of Islam Are Key for New World Order," Al-Hewar (Washington, DC: 1993), p. 6.
72. Eugenio Montale, It Depends: A Poet's Notebook, translated by G. Singh (New York: New Directions Books, 1977), p. 87.