Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa

Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Walid El Hamamsy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136228071
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This book explores the body and the production process of popular culture in, and on, the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey, and Iran in the first decade of the 21st century, and up to the current historical moment. Essays consider gender, racial, political, and cultural issues in film, cartoons, music, dance, photo-tattoos, graphic novels, fiction, and advertisements. Contributors to the volume span an array of specializations ranging across literary, postcolonial, gender, media, and Middle Eastern studies and contextualize their views within a larger historical and political moment, analyzing the emergence of a popular expression in the Middle East and North Africa region in recent years, and drawing conclusions pertaining to the direction of popular culture within a geopolitical context. The importance of this book lies in presenting a fresh perspective on popular culture, combining media that are not often combined and offering a topical examination of recent popular production, aiming to counter stereotypical representations of Islamophobia and otherness by bringing together the perspectives of scholars from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines. The collection shows that popular culture can effect changes and alter perceptions and stereotypes, constituting an area where people of different ethnicities, genders, and orientations can find common grounds for expression and connection.

Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa

Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Walid El Hamamsy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136228071
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the body and the production process of popular culture in, and on, the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey, and Iran in the first decade of the 21st century, and up to the current historical moment. Essays consider gender, racial, political, and cultural issues in film, cartoons, music, dance, photo-tattoos, graphic novels, fiction, and advertisements. Contributors to the volume span an array of specializations ranging across literary, postcolonial, gender, media, and Middle Eastern studies and contextualize their views within a larger historical and political moment, analyzing the emergence of a popular expression in the Middle East and North Africa region in recent years, and drawing conclusions pertaining to the direction of popular culture within a geopolitical context. The importance of this book lies in presenting a fresh perspective on popular culture, combining media that are not often combined and offering a topical examination of recent popular production, aiming to counter stereotypical representations of Islamophobia and otherness by bringing together the perspectives of scholars from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines. The collection shows that popular culture can effect changes and alter perceptions and stereotypes, constituting an area where people of different ethnicities, genders, and orientations can find common grounds for expression and connection.

Pop Culture in North Africa and the Middle East

Pop Culture in North Africa and the Middle East PDF Author: Andrew Hammond
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
ISBN: 1440833834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A ready-reference guide to pop culture in countries in North Africa and the Middle East, covering subjects ranging from the latest young adult book craze in Egypt to the hottest movies in Saudi Arabia. Allows readers to make cross-cultural comparisons by relating pop culture in the Islamic world to pop culture in the United States. Provides information that students can use in daily life, such as renting a popular or acclaimed Middle Eastern film or watching a YouTube video of Egyptian music.

Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa

Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Sherine Hafez
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253007615
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This volume combines ethnographic accounts of fieldwork with overviews of recent anthropological literature about the region on topics such as Islam, gender, youth, and new media. It addresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledge. Contributors include established and emerging scholars known for the depth and quality of their ethnographic writing and for their interventions in current theory.

Moroccan Noir

Moroccan Noir PDF Author: Jonathan Smolin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025301073X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Facing rising demands for human rights and the rule of law, the Moroccan state fostered new mass media and cultivated more positive images of the police, once the symbol of state repression, reinventing the relationship between citizen and state for a new era. Jonathan Smolin examines popular culture and mass media to understand the changing nature of authoritarianism in Morocco over the past two decades. Using neglected Arabic sources including crime tabloids, television movies, true-crime journalism, and police advertising, Smolin sheds new light on politics and popular culture in the Middle East and North Africa.

Pop Culture Arab World!

Pop Culture Arab World! PDF Author: Andrew Hammond
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1851094547
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The first book to explore how Arab pop culture has succeeded in helping forge a pan-Arab identity, where Arab nationalism has failed. Pop Culture Arab World! is the first volume to explore the full scope of Arab cultural life since World War II. The book reveals a homogeneous yet richly diverse culture across the Arab nations. In-depth chapters feature radio/TV (particularly the satellite revolution, which has fostered a shared Arab identity), the press (vibrant and controversial), cinema (once thriving, now in crisis), music (the beating heart of modern Arabness), theater (a largely assimilated Western import), popular religion, belly dance (originating in the Arab world), Western consumerism, sport, and the Arabic language (for Muslims, the tongue of God's final revelation). At a time when almost all we see of the Middle East is violence, oppressive nationalism, dangerous zealotry, and despair, this book is a vivid reminder of the humanity of the region's diverse people.

Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia

Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia PDF Author: Laudan Nooshin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317092287
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
What is it about the history, geographical position and cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia that has made music such a potent and powerful agent? This volume presents the first direct look at the complex relationship between music and power across a range of musical genres and countries. Discourses of power in the region centre on some of the most contested social issues, most notably in relation to nationhood, gender and religion. Individual chapters examine the ways in which music serves as a forum for playing out issues of power, ideology, resistance and subversion. How does music become a space for promoting - or conversely, resisting or subverting - particular ideologies or positions of authority? How does it accrue symbolic power in ways that are very particular, perhaps unique? And how does music become a site of social control or, alternatively, a vehicle for agency and empowerment, at times overt and at others highly subtle? What is it about music that facilitates, and sometimes disrupts, the exercise and flows of power? Who controls such flows, how and for what purposes? In asking such questions in the context of countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Tunisia and Tajikistan, the book draws on a wide range of relevant theoretical and critical ideas, and many disciplines including ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, politics, Middle Eastern studies, globalization studies, gender studies and cultural and media studies. The countries and areas explored share a great deal in historical and cultural terms, including a legacy of colonial and neo-colonial encounters and predominantly Judeo-Muslim religious traditions. It is hoped that the volume will contribute ultimately to a richer understanding of the role that music plays in these societies.

Middle East and North Africa

Middle East and North Africa PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004444971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Middle East and North Africa: Climate, Culture, and Conflicts – too hot to handle? The volume offers an account of ideas, historical case studies and current debates on climate change and its consequences from perspectives of eco-theology, archeology, history, geography, political science and technology.

Islam and Popular Culture

Islam and Popular Culture PDF Author: Karin van Nieuwkerk
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477309047
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Popular culture serves as a fresh and revealing window on contemporary developments in the Muslim world because it is a site where many important and controversial issues are explored and debated. Aesthetic expression has become intertwined with politics and religion due to the uprisings of the “Arab Spring,” while, at the same time, Islamist authorities are showing increasingly accommodating and populist attitudes toward popular culture. Not simply a “westernizing” or “secularizing” force, as some have asserted, popular culture now plays a growing role in defining what it means to be Muslim. With well-structured chapters that explain key concepts clearly, Islam and Popular Culture addresses new trends and developments that merge popular arts and Islam. Its eighteen case studies by eminent scholars cover a wide range of topics, such as lifestyle, dress, revolutionary street theater, graffiti, popular music, poetry, television drama, visual culture, and dance throughout the Muslim world from Indonesia, Africa, and the Middle East to Europe. The first comprehensive overview of this important subject, Islam and Popular Culture offers essential new ways of understanding the diverse religious discourses and pious ethics expressed in popular art productions, the cultural politics of states and movements, and the global flows of popular culture in the Muslim world.

Popular Culture in the Arab World

Popular Culture in the Arab World PDF Author: Andrew Hammond
Publisher: American Univ in Cairo Press
ISBN: 9789774160547
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This volume explores Arab cultural life since World War II. Chapters cover topics such as radio/TV, the press, cinema, music, theatre, popular religion, belly dance, western consumerism, sport and the Arabic language.

Food Culture in the Near East, Middle East, and North Africa

Food Culture in the Near East, Middle East, and North Africa PDF Author: Peter Heine
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313062315
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The similar cuisines of the Near East, Middle East, and North Africa stem from ancient cultures and variable climates, ranging from Mediterranean to desert. The major monotheistic religions developed in the Middle East, and students and other readers will learn how religious strictures on food and drink continue to play an important role in eating habits there today for Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Most of the population in the regions is Arab, and therefore the emphasis in this volume is mainly on the Arab Muslim food cultures. The impact of colonialism, globalization, and modernization of the foodways is also discussed in the topical chapters. This thorough overview provides huge insight into the lives of everyday people in the regions through their food culture. One chapter describes the major foodstuffs and how they are used. Another discusses gender roles and cooking, the use of cookbooks, and details the typical kitchen and its contents, from appliances to utensils. A chapter on typical meals shows the daily rituals of the various peoples. The Eating Out chapter provides a fascinating look at the workings and décor of small, traditional restaurants, the popularity of picnics, and more. Next, food in the context of religious holidays and life-cycle celebrations is discussed. Finally, traditional folk and modern beliefs about diet and health round out the coverage.