The Sovereign Language and the Sovereignty of Language: Presenting the Issue I Did Not Edit

“The Sovereign Language and the Sovereignty of Language” is a retrospective reflection by Theory and Criticism’s second editor (1999–2009) on the options and opportunities he missed during his term. Shenhav reverts to his former name, Shahrabani, to examine the myopia of critical theory with regard to Arabic, and the reproduction of the language segregation on which Israeli colonialism is founded. Shenhav-Shahrabani describes the widespread illiteracy of Israeli Jews in Arabic (0.5% of whom can read an Arabic text), not only as an obstacle to a shared Jewish–Palestinian critical language but also as an early symptom of the volcano that might erupt from the secularized messianic prison of Hebrew.