Bread or Freedom”
The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and the Arabic Literary Journal Hiwār (1962-67)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9325622 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Holt (0000-0002-5324-6448, Bard College, corresponding author), Elizabeth M Holt (1 Bard College) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 83-102 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Arabic Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0085-2376 • E-ISSN: 1570-064X |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/1570064x-12341257 |
| OpenAlex | W2039780120 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 3 |
In 1950, the United States Central Intelligence Agency created the Congress for Cultural Freedom, with its main offices in Paris. The CCF was designed as a cultural front in the Cold War in response to the Soviet Cominform, and founded and funded a worldwide network of literary journals (as well as conferences, concerts, art exhibits and other cultural events). From 1962 until its scandalous collapse over the course of 1966 and the early months of 1967, Tawfīq Ṣāyigh edited the CCF’s Arabic outpost Ḥiwār from Beirut, joining a growing web of CCF journals, including London’s Encounter , Kampala’s Transition , Bombay’s Quest , and the Latin American, Paris-based Mundo Nuevo . Ḥiwār , a journal funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and thus covertly by the CIA, sought to co-opt the Arab avant-garde, offering authors both material compensation for their writing, as well as the much lauded cultural freedom. By 1966, Ḥiwār ’s promise to writers of both bread and freedom collapsed in the pages of the Arabic press under the weight of paradox and a worldwide scandal on the eve of the 1967 Arab defeat
Agency (philosophy · Arabic · Arabic literature · Art history · Freedom of the press · Front (military · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · North African History and Literature · Philosophy
World Literature as a Special Issue
Speculative Epistemologies of Resistance in Hombres de maíz and Bandarshah
Between aesthetic revolution, mysticism, and mystification
Between writer and militant
Cosmopolitan Radicalism
African Literature and the CIA
What Filters Through the Curtain
The Visual Economy of “Precious Books”
El espíritu liberal
Entanglement, Global History, and the Arab Left
La guerra fría cultural en el Tercer Mundo
Cultural attachés
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,71 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |