Although Asfour’s views provoked a lot of controversy, as he fell into the circle of polarization between modernity and conservatism, the man was widely appreciated by his students and readers. Some even described him as the legitimate grandson of Taha Hussein, as he was a student of Dr. Suhair al-Qalamawi, a student of Dr. Taha Hussein.
On the other hand, some criticized Asfour’s achievements, including the late critic Abdel Aziz Hammouda, professor of English literature at Cairo University. In these lines, Sky News Arabia sheds light on the man’s long career.
3 features
Gaber Asfour is a resident of the city of Mahalla al-Kubra in the Gharbia governorate in northern Egypt, where he was born in 1944, and graduated from the Faculty of Arts in 1965, and in the year following his graduation, he was appointed as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Arts, and obtained master’s and doctorate degrees to begin a distinguished academic career, which culminated in becoming a visiting professor. At major universities in the world such as Harvard, Wisconsin-Madison.
About Asfour’s career, former Egyptian Minister of Culture Helmy Al-Namnam spoke to Sky News Arabia. He says that Asfour’s career is summarized in 3 basic features, the first feature: the university professor, the second: the public intellectual, and the third is the feature of the official in cultural institutions.
Al-Numnam explains: “In the first aspect, we see that Dr. Jaber Asfour left us a large group of students with distinguished abilities, and the Egyptian and Arab universities are full of them now, such as: Hussein Hamouda, Tariq Noaman and dozens of others,” noting that his students were not only in the department The Arabic language he headed, but spread to all departments of human studies.
He continues: “In this context, Asfour presented a number of distinguished academic books, whether in the critical Arab heritage, or on Dr. Taha Hussein in his doctoral thesis.”
It should be mentioned here that Asfour’s most important books include: “The Ordeal of Enlightenment,” “Anwar al-Aql,” “Time of the Novel,” “The Seduction of Heritage,” “Literary Criticism and Cultural Identity,” “Critique of the Culture of Underdevelopment,” “Challenges of the Contemporary Critic,” and “Time Beautiful.” Gone”, “On the Love of Poetry” and “Margins on the Notebook of Enlightenment”.
Regarding the role of Jaber Asfour as an intellectual, Al-Numnam explains to Sky News Arabia that Asfour’s writings in major Egyptian and Arab magazines and newspapers were not just filling papers, but he was engaging with the cultural reality, during which he fought fierce battles with the forces of darkness in the Arab region.
He continues: “Part of the failure of the Brotherhood’s project in Egypt and the Arab region is due to the critical stance taken by a group of intellectuals against this trend, and this ideological stance adopted by Dr. Jaber Asfour and his fellow intellectuals was earlier than the governments of some Arab countries that did not confront the Islamists.”
As for Asfour’s role as a cultural official, Al-Numnam says that the greatest credit for establishing the National Council for Translation goes to Jaber Asfour, “If it weren’t for Jaber Asfour, the National Center for Translation would not have been. for translation.”
He asserts that Asfour transformed the Supreme Council of Culture from a mere institution that does nothing but grant the state’s incentive awards to a cultural institution in the full sense of the word, and the council received a number of the world’s leading intellectuals, and most of the Arab intellectuals.
criticism
For his part, the Egyptian writer Ashraf Radi says that Jaber Asfour had a special interest in the issue of enlightenment, which was reflected in his writings, and he tried from the translations of the national translation project in its first stage to transfer into Arabic most of the writings in this context.
Radi added to Sky News Arabia: “In the field of literary criticism, Asfour was one of those who laid the foundations of the structural school in literature studies and literary criticism,” noting that this matter was the subject of great criticism from other schools, especially by Dr. Abdel Aziz Hammouda, who wrote in This is the matter in my books “Convex Mirrors from Structuralism to Deconstruction” and “Concave Mirrors”.
The Egyptian writer believes that the project of the National Center for Translation, which was adopted by Dr. Jaber Asfour, presented to Arabic modern writings of European production in different fields and in different languages through a number of skilled translators. The project contributed to the completion of a large number of high-end, respectable and diverse translations, pointing out that Asfour succeeded in Link translation programs with the rest of the activities of the Supreme Council of Culture.
However, there is a criticism that Radi refers to, and some have directed against the publications of the National Council for Translation, as they made great contributions in the field of human studies, while other sciences did not receive the required attention, and there are some translations that sparked controversy, such as the book “Black Athena” which says that the origins of civilizations Europe returns to Egypt, which sparked a lot of controversy, and the great thinker Murad Wahba was at the forefront of critics at the time.
Regarding the criticisms leveled at Asfour, which says that he “did not succeed in establishing a large and influential critical school,” Al-Namnam, who has been at the head of the Ministry of Culture for about two years, says: “This is not the responsibility of Asfour, so do not expect anyone to establish a great critical theory, in a weak society and a weak state.” “.
He continues: “The Americans or the Russians were able to establish influential theories in the world because they have great and influential power. The critic does not work in isolation from the society in which he lives.”
He gives an example, saying: “Al-Jahiz and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi were famous and famous because they were living in the era of the Abbasid state, which was strong and well-known throughout the world. They get the same fame.
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