Popular Culture In The Arab World

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.

This book explores the current historical moment through works of popular culture produced in, and on, the Middle East and North Africa region, Turkey, and Iran. Essays consider gender, racial, political, and other issues in film, cartoons, talk shows, music, dance, blogs, graphic novels, fiction, fashion, and advertisements.

Explores the full scope of Arab cultural life since World War II. The book reveals a homogeneous yet richly diverse culture across the Arab nations.

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.

Explores the full scope of Arab cultural life since World War II. The book reveals a homogeneous yet richly diverse culture across the Arab nations.

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.

This book seeks to both showcase and further develop innovative research and debates on contemporary Arab cultural production. Popular culture in the form of cinema, popular music, literature, visual media and cyber-cultures, both local and imported, enjoy a central role in Arab cultural life, and the contributors to this innovative collection showcase the tremendous cultural output emerging from the Arab world. They present sensitive, conceptual readings whilst remaining mindful of the place of this work within a wider framework that seeks to prevent isolationist readings of cultural phenomena. Making sense of the place of culture in the Arab world, and agreeing upon a broadly recognisable and commonly accepted set of terms within which to discuss this output, is a new and urgent challenge. Arab Cultural Studies aspires to understand, communicate and theorise these forms. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

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.

Ideal for students and general readers, this single-volume work serves as 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. Part of the new Pop Culture around the World series, this volume focuses on countries in North Africa and the Middle East, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and more. The book enables students to examine the stars, idols, and fads of other countries and provides them with an understanding of the globalization of pop culture. An introduction provides readers with important contextual information about pop culture in North Africa and the Middle East, such as how the United States has influenced movies, music, and the Internet; how Islamic traditions may clash with certain aspects of pop culture; and how pop culture has come to be over the years. Readers will learn about a breadth of topics, including music, contemporary literature, movies, television and radio, the Internet, sports, video games, and fashion. There are also entries examining topics like key musicians, songs, books, actors and actresses, movies and television shows, popular websites, top athletes, games, and clothing fads and designers, allowing readers to gain a broad understanding of each topic, supported by specific examples. An ideal resource for students, the book provides Further Readings at the end of each entry; sidebars that appear throughout the text, providing additional anecdotal information; appendices of Top Tens that look at the top-10 songs, movies, books, and much more in the region; and a bibliography.

As the Gulf assumes an ever more important identity in the global political economy, we see the emergence of a new popular and political culture underpinning its increasingly self-confident national identities. This volume explores the new dynamism of the Gulf, reflected not just in high-rise buildings and booming stock markets, but also manifested in the realms of art, ideas and expression, and their relationships with political authority. Contributors include figures instrumental to the emergence of these new identities, including artists, broadcasters and cultural commentators.