The New Middle East Insurrections and Other Subversions of the Modernist Frame

Using ideas from postmodern, postcolonial, and feminist thought, this paper analyzes recent global insurrections, e.g., the Arab Spring, to demonstrate their departure from modernist frameworks. Participants in the new uprisings, which are mainly comprised of youth and populated by great numbers of women, seek new language, modes of organizing, and formations. Presenting the new insurrections as not only anti-statism, anti-authoritarian, and non-hierarchal, but also fragmentary, uncertain, incomplete, and ongoing, I ground my ideas with examples from the various insurrections and end with the 2013 uprising in Sudan in an attempt to challenge the concept of failure and exemplify the unintended consequences of the insurrections.