Cosmopolitanism, Activism and Arab Documentary Film

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-231
Author(s):  
Josepha Ivanka Wessels
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Global Citizenship ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Human Emotion ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Middle East Studies

Abstract Since the 1970s, Arab documentary filmmakers have highlighted struggles for personal freedom, dignity and democracy by those restricted by oppressive systems of colonialism, occupation and authoritarianism. In this article I study four contemporary Arab documentary films to identify a path vital for the rethinking of cosmopolitanism and global citizenship in Middle East studies. After the 2011 global interest in the Arab uprisings, Syrian and Palestinian documentaries rose to acclaim at international film festivals, and won Emmys and Oscar nominations. The often character-led stories of these films defy orientalist views of the Middle East. Creative global communities at international film festivals are emerging, where Arab documentary filmmakers and their non-elitist stories connect on various humanistic, sociocultural and political levels with non-Arab peers. In this article my aim is to contribute to a redefinition of cosmopolitanism, one not based on the rationalism of the Enlightenment but on the universality of human emotion and sentiment.

Comparative Area Studies and the Study of Middle East Politics after the Arab Uprisings

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Bank
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Middle East Politics ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
Middle East Studies

The Arab uprisings of 2011 led to the fall of several heads of state, triggered wars in three countries, and threatened the survival of all eight monarchies in the Middle East. In the field of Middle East studies, these processes have led to a fundamental questioning of preexisting theoretical assumptions and methodological approaches. A more self-critical and self-aware research program now exists that seeks to trace the different political trajectories in the region. This chapter argues that comparative area studies (CAS) can further advance the study of the Arab uprisings by employing a broader analytic framework while remaining attentive to the regional context of the Middle East. While qualitative research remains mostly intra-regional, cross-regional comparisons are slowly emerging, utilizing insights from—and comparisons to—the fall of communism and European history. The conclusion considers the promises and pitfalls of CAS in the study of the Middle East and beyond.

Examining Markets, Marketing, Consumers, and Society through Documentary Films

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Belk
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Historical Film ◽  
The World ◽  
Online Access

Documentary film is over 100 years old and includes subgenres such as ethnography, historical film, docu-drama, propaganda, and advocacy videos. With numerous film archives, film festivals, special DVD issues of journals, inexpensive video recording and editing equipment, Internet distribution, and the phenomenal growth of archival Internet sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, there are now hundreds of millions of documentary films and videos available to the interested researcher. The author argues that the macromarketing field has greatly underutilized this vast resource and suggests examples of sources and uses for such material. The author also suggests some aids for acquiring critical visual literacy skills to inform such analyses. Just as we rely on our libraries and online access for books and print journals, we can readily do the same with documentary films. Such analytical projects can be presented as either video documentaries themselves, as text-based articles and books, or as multimedia combinations. Film, video, Internet, and television images arguably do more to influence public perceptions of marketing, consumption, and life than any other medium. There is thus a great opportunity to understand society through this window on the world.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL FOREWORD

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Sara Pursley ◽  
Beth Baron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Editorial Foreword

Interest in the study of space was already increasing in Middle East studies, as in other areas of scholarship, before the 2011 Arab uprisings and the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey—combined with the Occupy movement in the United States and similar phenomena elsewhere—turned worldwide attention to the politics of public spaces in the era of globalization and neoliberalism. This issue of IJMES reflects both the ongoing “spatial turn” in the scholarship and the more immediate and contingent attempts, sparked by recent events, to (re-)theorize public space in particular.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL FOREWORD

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Baron ◽  
Sara Pursley
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Editorial Foreword

This issue ofIJMESopens with a special section on the Arab uprisings of 2011. For the first feature of the section, titled “Reflections: Middle East Studies at the Barricades,” we asked scholars from different disciplines to provide brief reflections on how the events might or should change scholarship on the region, or the questions that scholars ask. The contributors responded with a range of suggestions for future scholarship and a variety of critiques of past scholarship. We will not attempt to summarize these critiques here. Instead, we would like to play devil's (or scholar's) advocate, by pointing to a few ways in which past scholarship on the Middle Easthasproduced insights for understanding the unfolding events.

Orientalist Speech-acts and Israeli Middle East Studies: Cautions and Criticisms of Edward Said Beyond the Battle of Ideas

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-237
Author(s):  
Eyal Clyne
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Academic World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Middle East Studies

Drawing on speech acts theory, this article discusses the illocutionary and perlocutionary forces of discursive practices with which certain academic circles seek to discredit the Saidian ‘Orientalism’ framework. Identifying the unusual value attached to Said as object of attachment or detachment, desirability and exceptionality, this analysis turns away from deliberations about ‘orientalism’ as a party in a battle of ideas, and studies common cautionary statements and other responses by peers as actions in the social (academic) world, that enculture and police expectations. Cautioning subjects about this framework, or conditioning its employment to preceding extensive pre-emptive complicating mitigations, in effect constructs this framework as undesirable and ‘risky’. While strong discursive reactions are not uncommon in academia, comparing them to treatments of less-controversial social theories reveals formulations, meanings and attentions which are arguably reserved for this ‘theory’. Conclusively, common dismissals, warnings and criticisms of Said and ‘Orientalism’ often exemplify Saidian claims, as they deploy the powerful advantage of enforcing hegemonic, and indeed Orientalist, views.

Transitions Within Queer North African Cinema

Screen Bodies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter S. Temple
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Global Awareness ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
North African ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
African Cinema ◽  
Queer Cinema

In recent years, North African queer cinema has become increasingly visible both within and beyond Arabo-Orientale spaces. A number of critical factors have contributed to a global awareness of queer identities in contemporary Maghrebi cinema, including the dissemination of films through social media outlets and during international film festivals. Such tout contemporain representations of queer sexuality characterize a robust wave of films in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, inciting a new discourse on the condition of the marginalized traveler struggling to locate new forms of self and being—both at home and abroad.

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