Background
Hassan, Ihab Habib was born on October 17, 1925 in Cairo. Came to the United States, 1946. Naturalized, 1956.
( An invitation to voyage east leads Ihab Hassan to refle...)
An invitation to voyage east leads Ihab Hassan to reflect on his origins in Egypt, on his home in America, and on his host country, Japan. Part memoir, part cultural perception, Between the Eagle and the Sun records a journey, echoing the "wanderers of eternity." The result is not a book about "them," some alien people living on a distant island, but rather a book about the author himself, living among others, living and seeing himself sometimes as another, assaying always to read the hieroglyphs of his past in the scripts of Japan. Lucid as it is intensely felt, at once lyrical and critical, the work offers a beguiling vision of Japan and, by tacit contrast, of America. For writing, the author says, is more than praise or blame, it is also knowledge, empathy, and delight. These attributes are evident in Hassan's treatment of Japanese culture, its people and scenes. Indeed, the people, rendered in vibrant portraits throughout the book, abide when all the shadows of romance and exasperation have fled. True to its moment, the work also reinvests the forms of memoir, travel, and quest. Cultural essays, travel anecdotes, autobiographical meditations, portraits of Japanese friends, a section titled "Entries, A to Z," fit into a tight frame, with clear transitions from one section to another. The style, however, alters subtly to suit topic, occasion, and mood. Japan may not hold the key to this planet's future; no single nation does. Yet the continuing interest in its history, society, and people and the incresed awareness of its recent trends and growing global impact engage an expanding audience. Avoiding cliches, sympathetic to its subject yet analytical, unflinching in judgment, and withal highly personal, Between the Eagle and the Sun offers a unique image of its subject by a distinguished and well-traveled critic, at home in several cultures.
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(Ihab Hassan, sometimes called the father of Postmodernism...)
Ihab Hassan, sometimes called the father of Postmodernism sets out here to recover the major trends, themes and debates that have animated the American literary and cultural scenes for nearly fifty years.
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( In this book, the first edition of which was published ...)
In this book, the first edition of which was published in 1971 by Oxford University Press, Ihab Hassan takes Orphic dismemberment and regeneration as his metaphor for a radical crisis in art and language, culture and consciousness, which prefigures postmodern literature. The modern Orpheus, he writes, “sings on a lyre without strings.” Thus, his sensitive critique traces a hypothetical line from Sade through four modern authors—Hemingway, Kafka, Genet, and Beckett—to a literature still to come. But the line also breaks into two Interludes, one concerning ’Pataphysics, Dada, and Surrealism, and the other concerning Existentialism and Aliterature. Combining literary history, brief biography, and critical analysis, Hassan surrounds these authors with a complement of avant-garde writers whose works also foreshadow the postmodern temper. These include Jarry, Apollinaire, Tzara, Breton, Sartre, Camus, Nathalie Sarraute, Robbe-Grillet, and in America, Cage, Salinger, Ginsberg, Barth, and Burroughs. Hassan takes account also of related contemporary developments in art, music, and philosophy, and of many works of literary theory and criticism. For this new edition, Hassan has added a new preface and postface on the developing character of postmodernism, a concept which has gained currency since the first edition of this work, and which he himself has done much to theorize.
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( In this era of supersonic jets, ubiquitous McDonalds, a...)
In this era of supersonic jets, ubiquitous McDonalds, and pervasive Panasonics, in our coddled jacuzzi culture, our cybernetic society of acronyms and first names, does the spirit of quest endure? Indeed, from rain forests, across oceans, steppes, savannahs, and saharas to the peaks of the Andes or Himalayas, American writers still test the limits of human existence. They test spirit, flesh, marrow, and imagination in a timeless quest for meaning beyond civilization, at the razor edge of mortality. And they return with sun-cracked skin and gazes honed on horizons to tell us the tale. "Ihab Hassan's new book on quests turns out to be a quest of his own. He takes us through an invigorating range of today's American writers as they test themselves against the far corners of our tattered planet. Hassan shows us how their quests (and, incidentally, his own) entwine risks, commitments, and desperate exercises in belief, how their aspirations are human but uniquely American. This is a book everyone interested in American culture can learn from—and enjoy. Hassan's voice is one of graceful wisdom and passionate elegance, a refreshing landfall in today's turgid sea of criticism." —Norman N. Holland, University of Florida
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Hassan, Ihab Habib was born on October 17, 1925 in Cairo. Came to the United States, 1946. Naturalized, 1956.
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with highest honors, University Cairo, 1946. Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, University Pennsylvania, 1948. Master of Arts in English, University Pennsylvania, 1950.
Doctor of Philosophy in English, University Pennsylvania, 1953.
He was Emeritus Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His writings include Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel (1961), The Literature of Silence: Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett (1967), The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature (1971, 1982), Paracriticisms: Seven Speculations of the Times (1975), The Right Promethean Fire: Imagination, Science, and Cultural Change (1980), The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture (1987), Selves at Risk: Patterns of Quest in Contemporary American Letters (1990), and Rumors of Change: Essays of Five Decades (1995), as well as two memoirs, Out of Egypt: Scenes and Arguments of an Autobiography (1985) and Between the Eagle and the Sun: Traces of Japan (1996). Recently, he has published many short stories in various literary magazines and is completing a novel, The Changeling.
His last published work was In Quest of Nothing: Selected Essays, 1998-2008 (2010).
In addition, he has written more than 300 essays and reviews on literary and cultural subjects. Hassan received honorary degrees from the University of Uppsala (1996) and the University of Giessen (1999), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1958, 1962), and three Senior Fulbright Lectureships (1966, 1974, 1975).
He was on the Faculty of the School of Letters, Indiana University (1964), Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1972), twice on the Faculty of the Salzburg Summer Seminars in American Studies (1965,1975), Senior Fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis (1974–1975), Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio (1978), twice a Senior Fellow at the Humanities Research Center in Canberra (1990, 2003), Resident Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of California, Irvine (1990), on the Faculty of the Stuttgart Summer Seminars in Cultural Studies (1991), and three times on the Faculty of the Scandinavian Summer School of Literary Theory and Criticism in Karlskrona (2000, 20001, 2004). In addition he has delivered more than 500 public lectures in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
The following table is taken from a part of The Dismemberment of Orpheus that was reprinted in Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (1998).
Foreign differences shift, defer. Guide to the Ihab Hassan Papers. Special Collections and Archives, The University of California Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Other
Official Website.
( In this era of supersonic jets, ubiquitous McDonalds, a...)
( In this book, the first edition of which was published ...)
(Ihab Hassan, sometimes called the father of Postmodernism...)
( An invitation to voyage east leads Ihab Hassan to refle...)
( The Description for this book, Radical Innocence: Studi...)
( The Description for this book, Radical Innocence: Studi...)
( The Description for this book, Radical Innocence: Studi...)
(Contemporary American Literature, 1945 to 1972: An Introd...)
(Philosophy, Essays, Cultural Studies)
lieutenant seeks to explain the differences, both concrete and abstract, between modernism and postmodernism. Hassan"s Table of Differences between Modernism and Postmodernism ends with the statement (The Dismemberment of Orpheus, p 269): "Yet the dichotomies this table represents remain insecure, equivocal. Even collapse; concepts in one vertical column are not all equivalent.
And inversions and exceptions, in both modernism and postmodernism, abound."
"Toward a Concept of Postmodernism" (1987).
Member Modern Language Association (divisional executive committees 1976-1979, 84-89, advisory board proceedings 1979-1983), American Comparative Literature Association, Association International des Critiques Littéraires, International Association University Professors English, International Federation for Modern Languages and Literature, Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association Club, Sigma Xi.
Married Sarah Margaret Greene, 1966. 1 child by previous marriage, Geoffrey.