Arab Cultural Studies Mapping the Field

by Sabry, Tarik

• ISBN13: 9781848855588
• ISBN10: 1848855583
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

Arab Cultural Studies is a fast emerging field of research and study in Middle East and Western universities. In this book, prominent scholars, writing from both Arab and Western academia, discuss for the first time the ways in which this nascent area can be conceptualised and theorised. They provide a meta¿]narrative about how scholars have thus far thought and unthought the field, engaging with key complex, epistemic and methodological questions. At the same time they are articulating the new kinds of language and hermeneutics necessary in order to appropriate an historically conscious and coherent field of scientific enquiry into contemporary Arab media, culture and society. The book throughout reflects on and engages in an interdisciplinary discussion on the different facets of Arab cultural studies, including gender, economy, epistemology, language, method, politics, literary and cultural criticism, institutionalization, popular culture, creativity, and much more.

Author Biography

Tarik Sabry is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication Theory at the University of Westminster. He is the author of Cultural Encounters in the Arab World: On Media, the Modern and the Everyday(I.B.Tauris, 2010) and is co-editor if the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication .

Table of Contents

Introduction * Cultural Criticism: Theory & Method * The Saudi Modernity Wars According To 'Abdullah Al-Ghadhami: A Template for the Study of Arab Culture and Media * Arab Media Studies between the Legacy of a Thin Discipline and the Promise of New Cultural Pathways * Cultural Studies in Arab World Academic Communication Programmes * The Battle for Survival * In search of the Great Absent: Cultural Studies in Arab Universities * Resources, Creativity and Arab culture: Insights from a Political Economy Approach * Language as culture: The question of Arabic * Rethinking the Arab State and Culture: Power, discourse and media in contemporary Syria * The Necessary Politics of Palestinian Cultural Studies * Rethinking Gender Studies in the Arab World: A Conceptual Intervention * Disarticulating Arab Popular Culture: The Case of Egyptian Comedies * Internationalizing a Media Studies degree in Arab Higher Education: A case study arising from an agreement between New Zealand and Oman * Arab cultural studies: between re-territorialization and de-territorialization * Notes * Index