Suchergebnisse

AbstractA vast array of narratives found in medieval historical chronicles and literary sources have referenced the particular ways in which the culture associated with the 'Abbasid caliphate diverged from a binary model of gender. Despite debate about the historical accuracy of these early chronicles, the repeated references to the sixth 'Abbasid caliph Muhammad al-Amin's non-heteronormativity indicate at least a kernel of truth. This article examines the collective memory construction of al-Amin in the Egyptian series Harun al-Rashid (1997) and two Syrian series, Abna' al-Rashid: al-Amin wa-l-Ma'mun (The Sons of al-Rashid: al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, 2006) and Harun al-Rashid (2018). These contemporary portrayals of the life of al-Amin simultaneously illustrate the process by which history is altered by authorial perspective and the erasure of nonheteronormative space within the 'Abbasid caliphate. My own authorial perspective inclines toward an interpretation of al-Amin as queer; through this lens, an inspection of wide-ranging accounts of al-Amin's life reveals the historical biases of his time and our current moment, too, as historians then and now variably recognize al-Amin's queerness in constructing collective memory. Some have argued that anti–al-Amin chroniclers may have engaged in historical revisionism and referred to al-Amin as queer to discredit the caliph, but ultimately, whether or not this is true, the current application of those early references by contemporary screenwriters is the most revealing historiographical decision, as his many representations serve as a mirror for our contemporary subjectivities, interests, and agendas. At a time when queer lives and experiences are notably absent from traditional historical narratives, this article proposes that regardless of the accuracy of the original sources, the absence itself in contemporary portrayals is significant, as patterns of exclusion yield tangible meaning. In this particular case, the ready elimination of queerness from contemporary narratives shows the ways in which queerness is vulnerable to erasure in favor of other, more politically expedient identity characteristics and values.

AbstractSyrian miniseries engage in multifaceted discourses of fatherhood inherently linked with the rise and fall of the qabaday (tough man). Before the uprising, while the avowed focus was on gender constructions, in truth, politics lay at the heart of the messages. With the gradual construction of the new qabaday, screenwriters shifted to an anxious focus on absent father figures and a more emotionally connected fatherhood ideal that surpassed the father as protector and financial provider. The fall of the qabaday and the cessation of yearning for a protective masculinity in Syrian melodrama connoted the rise of more equal gender relations, which symbolized a pluralistic political order. Amid the uprising, those outwardly embracing the regime narrative insist that they are focusing on societal norms rather than politics. This study is based on analysis of miniseries from the 1960s to the present and interviews with screenwriters in Beirut, Damascus, and Paris.

This article examines sketches from the Syrian television show Buq'at Daw' (Spotlight). Once considered indicative of changes many hoped for during the early days of the Bashar al-Asad regime, Buq'at Daw' remained popular through the reform process's failure and the beginning
of the recent Syrian uprising. While scholars have cast critical programming as an "airing" of public frustrations permitted by the regime in order to stave off popular protest, this article argues that focusing on government intent robs intellectuals of agency. Instead, this article looks
at productions like Buq'at Daw' as part of a continual attempt by drama creators to challenge limits of what is permissible through innuendo, stratagem, and word artistry.

The 18th-century European Enlightenment championed rational philosophy and scientific methodology, rather than any form of traditional theology, as the way to understand the objective truth.1 In their quest for the fundamental truth, France's philosophes, the rational and anticlerical intellectuals of the Age of Reason, were forced to brave official censorship, persecution, and imprisonment as they disentangled themselves from their Christian heritage. Thus, the French Enlightenment was informed by a dualistic view of history—an ongoing contest between reason and faith. Although faith had gained ascendancy with Christianity's triumph over classical antiquity in the late 3rd and 4th centuries, according to the philosophes, many of whom served as key contributors to the Encyclopédie, religion and science had once again joined battle in the 18th century, this time with science and reason poised to overcome religious irrationality.2 In this context, the renowned philosophe Voltaire, in his highly controversial Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764), attacks Christian dogma, refutes the tenet of Christ's divine nature, and rejects the possibility of miracles as running contrary to all scientific evidence.3 Similarly, in Système de la Nature (1770), another philosophe, d'Holbach, deplores man's pursuit of the chimeras of religious revelation and refusal to engage in rational methods of inquiry.4 The arguments of Voltaire and d'Holbach are just two examples of the French Enlightenment tenet that knowledge can be based only on science and reason.