Postcolonial Theory and Arabic Criticism: A Deferred Encounter
Between an imported theory and a cultural field carrying its own wounds, the encounter remains possible — but conditioned on critical awareness rather than ready-made borrowing.
Arabic criticism received postcolonial theory with an understandable enthusiasm; on its surface, it is a theory that speaks in the name of the marginalised and dismantles the discourse of the centre. Yet enthusiasm alone does not make an encounter. It soon becomes clear that concepts, when they move from their original context, may dissemble — carrying with them assumptions never written for our field in the first place.
Importation or interrogation?
The problem lies not in the theory but in the manner of its reception. When concepts are imported as ready-made tools applied to the Arabic text, criticism turns into a display of terminology rather than a production of knowledge. But when the theory itself is interrogated — where did it come from? for whom was it written? what does it see, and what does it blind us to? — then the encounter becomes possible and fruitful.
The deferred encounter between Arabic criticism and postcolonial theory is not impossible; it is merely conditioned on our reading the theory without being read by it, on using it without becoming captive to its categories. Only then does criticism recover its place: a party to the conversation, not an employee of its methods.
An imported theory is neither rejected nor imitated; it is interrogated until it becomes our own.