Arab debates about the relationship between Arabs and modernity, its different political, intellectual and cultural meanings; the Arab reaction to the Euro-centric project of modernity; the study of the Arab region as part of the colonized world, which the project of modernity targeted on the levels of representation, colonization, and hegemony; major intellectual, literary and aesthetic movements that internalized the project of modernity; the confusion of modernization with modernity, their relationship to Napoleon ’s expedition in Egypt, and the resulting tension between tradition and modernity.
