Arab writers have often invoked the elusive legacy of the Nahda at moments of crisis as well as hope, most recently amid the current wave of Arab uprisings. The Arabic revival and reform period of the long nineteenth century which Albert Hourani famously conceived as the liberal age and periodized from 1798-1939, has, indeed, functioned as the foundational process of Arab modernity as well as a bedrock of cultural self-reflection. Historically, the Nahda – literally “rising up,” but usually glossed as “renaissance” or “awakening” – was not a unified process or stable actor-category; nor did it have a single, incontestable moment of inception. In light of a growing interest in the Nahda in English-language scholarship between September 2001 and the uprisings of 2011, this talk will offer some reflections on the place of the Nahda in Arab modernity discourses.