Suchergebnisse

Cultural politics and genealogies of the modern in the postcolony -- Amina Mansur : the map of love -- Becoming an Egyptian artist : "freethinking" in the mainstream -- Muhammad Mukhtar, Al-Ginubi : season of migration to the north -- Cultural authenticity, artistic personhood, and frames of evaluation -- Muhammad ʻAbla : Nile sparrows -- Freedom of talk : cultural policy and the transforming state -- Mustafa al-Razzaz : Book of revelations -- Cultivating civilized publics -- Gazibiyya Sirri : the search : personal papers -- Collecting a nation, displaying (a) culture -- ʻAbd al-Hadi al-Gazzar : I say to you -- Art and culture between empire and sovereignty -- Raghib ʻAyad : return of the spirit

This article explores the similarities and differences between artist and Islamic preacher discourses on art, culture, and youth in Mubarak‐era Egypt in order to highlight the utility and limitations of current anthropological discussions of secularism and religious discursive traditions. By focusing on the shared civilizing and transformative associations of youth, art, and religion, it argues that there is an ingraining of Islamic civilizing traditions into modern governance and vice versa. Furthermore, explaining this phenomenon of ingraining requires that we give more attention to social class and geographical location, nationalism, global and national political‐economic shifts, and the complicated ways that globally circulating discourses become entangled.

Since the early 1990s, the Egyptian government has devoted significant resources to new culture projects. Unprecedented numbers of new cultural institutions have been built or renovated throughout the country, including libraries, museums, culture palaces and houses, and creativity centers. These host thousands of public programs every year. The government has also started two new television channels devoted specifically to culture(thaqafa). Book fairs and art biennials have increased in number and expanded, new cultural periodicals and book series have been published, and new cultural competitions and prizes created. Nearly every day in the state press, one finds articles and announcements detailing cultural events and programs, as well as editorials on the importancethaqafato Egyptian society.

This essay examines the connections between art and politics in Middle East arts events in the U.S. since 9/11/2001. It critiques the universalist assumptions about humanity and the agentive capacity of art to build bridges of understanding in contexts of so-called civilizational conflict—assumptions that have strong roots in anthropology. By juxtaposing evidence of how the notion of "humanity" is deployed in exhibitions of Palestinian art with an analysis of the three more predominant types of arts events (historical Islamic art, Sufi arts, and contemporary art by Muslim women), the essay demonstrates how American secular elite discourse on Middle Eastern art corresponds to that of the "War on Terror."

Studies of contemporary visual art in the Middle East are scarce compared with the vast literature on historical Islamic arts. In the past ten years, however, several notable books and articles have featured this important but under-recognized realm of visual culture in the region. These recent works often examine the ways in which art reflects social trends such as nationalism and struggles for religious identity. Karnouk's book is a worthy introduction to the world of contemporary art in Egypt, and is the first major English-language book of its kind on the subject (see also Wijdan Ali, Modern Islamic Art: Development and Continuity [Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997]). Contemporary Egyptian Art is a sequel to Karnouk's earlier Modern Egyptian Art: The Emergence of a National Style (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1988), in which she outlined the prominent artists and styles of the first half-century of the modern art movement within the context of Egyptian nationalism. This recent book picks up from the 1952 revolution and presents the major trends in art since that time while offering possible socio-political explanations for these trends.

Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Academics and Politics -- 1. Becoming a Scholar -- 2. Making It through Graduate School -- 3. Navigating Conflicts on the Job -- 4. Building Disciplinary Institutions -- 5. Dis/Engaging the War on Terror -- Conclusion: Undisciplining Anthropology's Politics -- Appendix A: Methods -- Appendix B: AAA Motions and Resolutions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

In their recent book, Anthropology's Politics: Disciplining the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2016), Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar provide the first academic study of how political and economic pressures shape the way scholars based in the United States research and teach about the Middle East. Lila Abu-Lughod, a member of the journal's editorial board, recently talked with the authors about the dynamics of the field. The book's final chapter examines the movement among anthropologists in support of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Just after the book's publication, the issue came to a vote at the American Anthropological Association. Abu-Lughod asks the authors whether their research enables us to understand the outcome of the vote.