This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book draws on literary studies, media studies, and digital humanities, and focuses on the Arab world in a transnational context in order to examine the radical transformations affecting the way stories are told, dissent is expressed, and canons are produced in the new millennium. Focusing on new writing from Egypt and the Gulf, it explores these writings' fascination with and appropriation of digital media. These writings chart a particular redefinition of what Arab culture means in the digital age, pointing to the changing meaning of Arab culture (novels, authors, education, etc.) and of traditional codes of civility (adab) as a model of subjectivity in a context shaped by technological development and political upheaval.
Digital humanities practices and archival appraisal in the contemporary Arab world