Abstract:
The 'Golden Age' of Beirut is said to have been that period between the 1950s and 1960s, when the city was thriving economically and was the hub of Arab and foreign intellectuals. In particular it is Ras Beirut, home to the American University of Beirut and the once commercially unrivalled Hamra Street, that is regarded as the geographical equivalent to these idealized times. This is the discourse of the literature, primarily the produce of the intellectual elite who have the access and prestige to publish and distribute their versions of history. The discourse of the spoken word, however, sings a different tune. In fact, it sings several different tunes. Some of this discourse yearns for the rural Ras Beirut, but more surprisingly, some of it yearns for the Civil War (1975-1990). In this paper, the notion of nostalgia as a fixed package generic to all is challenged by the notion that memory is constructed, as is history. The history of Ras Beirut is therefore segmented across the various individuals we interviewed. Using Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital, our paper aims to understand how and why nostalgia is personalized. In the process, it problematizes the notion of cosmopolitanism, deconstructing the term according to our findings. Copyright © 2005 Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta.