Pub Date : 2019-06-25DOI: 10.17192/META.2019.12.7931
Annegret Roelcke
This article analyzes how the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led local municipality changed branding strategies for Istanbul’s Eyup quarter since its predecessor took office in 1994. Portraying itself as the savior of Eyup’s heritage and Eyup as the symbol of a larger imagined Islamic-Ottoman community, the AKP legitimizes its political rule on various levels. The diachronic comparison of municipal city guidebooks illustrates how the framing of Eyup and its branding strategies changed with shifting political contexts. The recent strategy to attract diverse tourists as multipliers to consume and spread the AKP’s identity narratives demonstrates the political nature of tourism branding.
{"title":"Constructing the Capital of Peace: Changing Branding Strategies for Istanbul’s Eyüp Quarter","authors":"Annegret Roelcke","doi":"10.17192/META.2019.12.7931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2019.12.7931","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes how the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led local municipality changed branding strategies for Istanbul’s Eyup quarter since its predecessor took office in 1994. Portraying itself as the savior of Eyup’s heritage and Eyup as the symbol of a larger imagined Islamic-Ottoman community, the AKP legitimizes its political rule on various levels. The diachronic comparison of municipal city guidebooks illustrates how the framing of Eyup and its branding strategies changed with shifting political contexts. The recent strategy to attract diverse tourists as multipliers to consume and spread the AKP’s identity narratives demonstrates the political nature of tourism branding.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"12 1","pages":"110-120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42004192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-25DOI: 10.17192/META.2019.12.7932
Kamaluddin Duaei
Despite its classically appreciated rank in the constellation of the Shia world and its key but contentious role in the politics of modern Iran, Qom has been one of the least-researched cities of the country. Especially taking into account the archstructures of capitalist political economy and the undercurrents of middle-class consumerism, this study aims at building up a critical, materialist take on the neo-liberal politics of Qom, particularly with regard to the developments of the last decade. It argues that recent trends in the urban formation and municipal policy of Qom betray the historical image they pretend to sustain and the ideological ideals they seem to pursue.
{"title":"Qom After Islamic Neoliberalism: A Narrative of the City in Limbo","authors":"Kamaluddin Duaei","doi":"10.17192/META.2019.12.7932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2019.12.7932","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its classically appreciated rank in the constellation of the Shia world and its key but contentious role in the politics of modern Iran, Qom has been one of the least-researched cities of the country. Especially taking into account the archstructures of capitalist political economy and the undercurrents of middle-class consumerism, this study aims at building up a critical, materialist take on the neo-liberal politics of Qom, particularly with regard to the developments of the last decade. It argues that recent trends in the urban formation and municipal policy of Qom betray the historical image they pretend to sustain and the ideological ideals they seem to pursue.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"12 1","pages":"55-65"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45470716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7788
Sahar Elmougy
The Egyptian revolutionaries, who in 2011 called for “bread, freedom and social justice,” witnessed the shattering of their dream and suffered the pain of being abandoned by the masses and silenced by the post-revolution regime in Egypt. The aim of this article is to explore indications of the creation of a “cultural trauma” (Alexander, “Towards”) for the Egyptian revolutionaries through a reading of Mustafa Ibrahim’s poem “I Have Seen Today.” In order to accomplish this task, this paper will first examine how the cultural trauma of African Americans (Eyerman, Slavery) responds to fresh triggers. In Terrance Hayes’s “American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin,” the election of Donald Trump as US president is the trigger to the older trauma. Comparing Ibrahim’s poem to Hayes’s aims at underlining the tools used by the Egyptian revolutionaries to create “a new master narrative” of trauma (Alexander, “Towards” 12) that could reconstruct the collective identity and redirect the course of political action.
{"title":"Towards a New Master Narrative of Trauma: A Reading of Terrance Hayes’ “American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin” and Mostafa Ibrahim’s “I Have Seen Today”","authors":"Sahar Elmougy","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7788","url":null,"abstract":"The Egyptian revolutionaries, who in 2011 called for “bread, freedom and social justice,” witnessed the shattering of their dream and suffered the pain of being abandoned by the masses and silenced by the post-revolution regime in Egypt. The aim of this article is to explore indications of the creation of a “cultural trauma” (Alexander, “Towards”) for the Egyptian revolutionaries through a reading of Mustafa Ibrahim’s poem “I Have Seen Today.” In order to accomplish this task, this paper will first examine how the cultural trauma of African Americans (Eyerman, Slavery) responds to fresh triggers. In Terrance Hayes’s “American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin,” the election of Donald Trump as US president is the trigger to the older trauma. Comparing Ibrahim’s poem to Hayes’s aims at underlining the tools used by the Egyptian revolutionaries to create “a new master narrative” of trauma (Alexander, “Towards” 12) that could reconstruct the collective identity and redirect the course of political action.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"99-107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46766564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7790
Felix J. Lang
The notion of trauma is widely used in contemporary research on literature, film, music, and other forms of cultural production in the Arab world. Building on a tradition of trauma studies in the humanities, much of this work is predicated on an essentialist, naturalized notion of trauma as developed in the seminal work of the literary scholar Cathy Caruth, among others. In this article I suggest that such a notion of trauma is problematic as it depoliticizes human suffering and marginalizes non-hegemonic ways of dealing with experiences of violence. In order to address these problems, I propose to turn to social constructivist approaches to trauma.
{"title":"No Such Thing as Society? A Critique of Hegemonic Notions of Trauma in the Research on Cultural Production","authors":"Felix J. Lang","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7790","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of trauma is widely used in contemporary research on literature, film, music, and other forms of cultural production in the Arab world. Building on a tradition of trauma studies in the humanities, much of this work is predicated on an essentialist, naturalized notion of trauma as developed in the seminal work of the literary scholar Cathy Caruth, among others. In this article I suggest that such a notion of trauma is problematic as it depoliticizes human suffering and marginalizes non-hegemonic ways of dealing with experiences of violence. In order to address these problems, I propose to turn to social constructivist approaches to trauma.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"154-158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42705855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/meta.2018.11.7826
S. Nader
I saw Basma Abdelaziz for the first time on March 15th, 2018. She was discussing her book Huna badan (Abdelaziz). Since that day, over a period of four months, I have read five of her books. I have also started following her Facebook page and reading her weekly newspaper column. Each one of her works added to my knowledge about a certain subject, made me think about an issue from a different point of view, or made me feel the pain of a certain group of people. I hope that by drawing this portrait of her, I may introduce her to new readers who may benefit from her writings as I did. Aside from this personal reason that may seem quite subjective, many objective reasons make me want to present her work in this portrait.
{"title":"Basma Abdelaziz - A Portrait","authors":"S. Nader","doi":"10.17192/meta.2018.11.7826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/meta.2018.11.7826","url":null,"abstract":"I saw Basma Abdelaziz for the first time on March 15th, 2018. She was discussing her book Huna badan (Abdelaziz). Since that day, over a period of four months, I have read five of her books. I have also started following her Facebook page and reading her weekly newspaper column. Each one of her works added to my knowledge about a certain subject, made me think about an issue from a different point of view, or made me feel the pain of a certain group of people. I hope that by drawing this portrait of her, I may introduce her to new readers who may benefit from her writings as I did. Aside from this personal reason that may seem quite subjective, many objective reasons make me want to present her work in this portrait.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"146-152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46521766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7796
O. I. Tijani
A prolific Iraqi-Kuwaiti writer, Ismaʿil Fahd Ismaʿil (1940-) has published over thirty novels among other literary works. Though a less-studied Arabic novelist, his writings are comparable—in terms of quantity, genre, length, technique, and subject matter—to those of the Egyptians Najib Mahfuz and Tawfiq al-Hakim. This article argues that trauma is reflected not just in Ismaʿil’s fiction, but also in his own conflicted persona, his identity as an Iraqi-Kuwaiti writer. The article reads al-Ḥabl, in particular, as an autobiographical novel that portrays Ismaʿil’s personal experiences of trauma in 1960s Iraq.
{"title":"Trauma in the Novels of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti Writer, IsmāꜤīl Fahd IsmāꜤīl","authors":"O. I. Tijani","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7796","url":null,"abstract":"A prolific Iraqi-Kuwaiti writer, Ismaʿil Fahd Ismaʿil (1940-) has published over thirty novels among other literary works. Though a less-studied Arabic novelist, his writings are comparable—in terms of quantity, genre, length, technique, and subject matter—to those of the Egyptians Najib Mahfuz and Tawfiq al-Hakim. This article argues that trauma is reflected not just in Ismaʿil’s fiction, but also in his own conflicted persona, his identity as an Iraqi-Kuwaiti writer. The article reads al-Ḥabl, in particular, as an autobiographical novel that portrays Ismaʿil’s personal experiences of trauma in 1960s Iraq.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"69-78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43367804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7792
Nora Parr
Discourse on trauma has re-emerged in an era where media and mobility bring it to global doorsteps. Frameworks for understanding trauma remain dictated by thinking that emerged from Europe’s “great wars” and American deployment to Vietnam. This framework—which sees trauma and the terrible as “out of time” or “other” to a perceived normal daily experience—has formed what critics call the “empire of trauma.” This empire limits how war, violence, and the terrible can be talked about and understood as part of (or not part of) contemporary life. Looking at two trauma narratives, Taḥta shams al-ḍuḥā (2004) by Ibrahim Nasrallah and Bāʾ mithl Baīt... mthl Baīrūt (1997; Trans B as in Beirut, 2008) by Iman Humaydan, the paper gives short readings that disrupt what has emerged as a binary of trauma theory. It shows how repetition and open endings turn everyday/trauma into everyday trauma, then goes on to explore how the novels develop language and generic structures so that they hold—rather than silence—tellings of the terrible.
{"title":"No More “Eloquent Silence”: Narratives of Occupation, Civil War, and Intifada Write Everyday Violence and Challenge Trauma Theory","authors":"Nora Parr","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7792","url":null,"abstract":"Discourse on trauma has re-emerged in an era where media and mobility bring it to global doorsteps. Frameworks for understanding trauma remain dictated by thinking that emerged from Europe’s “great wars” and American deployment to Vietnam. This framework—which sees trauma and the terrible as “out of time” or “other” to a perceived normal daily experience—has formed what critics call the “empire of trauma.” This empire limits how war, violence, and the terrible can be talked about and understood as part of (or not part of) contemporary life. Looking at two trauma narratives, Taḥta shams al-ḍuḥā (2004) by Ibrahim Nasrallah and Bāʾ mithl Baīt... mthl Baīrūt (1997; Trans B as in Beirut, 2008) by Iman Humaydan, the paper gives short readings that disrupt what has emerged as a binary of trauma theory. It shows how repetition and open endings turn everyday/trauma into everyday trauma, then goes on to explore how the novels develop language and generic structures so that they hold—rather than silence—tellings of the terrible.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"58-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48347563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7802
Kholoud Saber Barakat, P. Philippot
Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, this paper analyzes the narratives of five women who fled from Syria to Lebanon, with the objective of understanding how they continue to lead their lives beyond trauma. Results showed that these women’s ability to create meaning of their traumatic experiences and link it to their current lives is a determining factor in understanding their ability to move on. Finding a reason to keep going, creating a way to cope with loss, and perceiving an evolving sense of agency were significant aspects of getting over the traumatic event or enduring pain. Finally, changes in gender roles were identified by all five women, but their evaluation of these changes differed.
{"title":"Beyond Trauma, What Kept them Going? An Analysis of the Lives and Narratives of Five Syrian Women in Lebanon","authors":"Kholoud Saber Barakat, P. Philippot","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7802","url":null,"abstract":"Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, this paper analyzes the narratives of five women who fled from Syria to Lebanon, with the objective of understanding how they continue to lead their lives beyond trauma. Results showed that these women’s ability to create meaning of their traumatic experiences and link it to their current lives is a determining factor in understanding their ability to move on. Finding a reason to keep going, creating a way to cope with loss, and perceiving an evolving sense of agency were significant aspects of getting over the traumatic event or enduring pain. Finally, changes in gender roles were identified by all five women, but their evaluation of these changes differed.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"44-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49344476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7941
Stephan Milich, Lamia Moghnieh
This special issue aims to contribute to a deeper and critical understanding of trauma in the societies, cultures, and histories of the Middle East and North Africa. The collection of essays brings together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities and literary studies, not least by exploring the narrativization of suffering, its performative and its non-verbal expression both in social reality and cultural production. In presenting explorations of literary texts, theatre, social realities and theoretical reflection, we hope to contribute to a more comprehensive, nuanced and inclusive view on trauma and memory production both as a cultural and social materiality and as a political formation. The diverse array of different approaches, topics, and disciplines expresses our concern to include and map the diversity and multiplicity of current trauma studies research related to the MENA.
{"title":"Trauma: Social Realities and Cultural Texts","authors":"Stephan Milich, Lamia Moghnieh","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7941","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue aims to contribute to a deeper and critical understanding of trauma in the societies, cultures, and histories of the Middle East and North Africa. The collection of essays brings together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities and literary studies, not least by exploring the narrativization of suffering, its performative and its non-verbal expression both in social reality and cultural production. In presenting explorations of literary texts, theatre, social realities and theoretical reflection, we hope to contribute to a more comprehensive, nuanced and inclusive view on trauma and memory production both as a cultural and social materiality and as a political formation. The diverse array of different approaches, topics, and disciplines expresses our concern to include and map the diversity and multiplicity of current trauma studies research related to the MENA.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"5-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49350610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-13DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.11.7807
Vivienne Matthies-Boon
Based on 40 life-story testimonies with young Cairene activists, this article argues that post-revolutionary Egypt was marked by Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS). CTS is a phenomenological term that accounts for the structurally traumatic nature of political repression. It emphasizes the continuing temporality of such pervasive traumatizaton and the structural political stressors that underpin it. CTS thus entails a specifically political conception of trauma, according to which traumatic stress is in fact constituted by a violent, corrupt, unaccountable political and judicial system. This article argues that the traumatic experiences of activists in pre-and post-revolutionary Egypt are best perceived through the lens of CTS. It also insists that such traumatic stress—particularly the lack of justice and formal recourse—provided a fertile breeding ground for revenge and social polarization, which was directly incited by counter-revolutionary actors (such as the military and Muslim Brotherhood leadership), thereby sadly further contributing to the (seemingly endless) continuous cycle of continued traumatic stress.
{"title":"Injustice Turned Inward? Continuous Traumatic Stress and Social Polarization in Egypt","authors":"Vivienne Matthies-Boon","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.11.7807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.11.7807","url":null,"abstract":"Based on 40 life-story testimonies with young Cairene activists, this article argues that post-revolutionary Egypt was marked by Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS). CTS is a phenomenological term that accounts for the structurally traumatic nature of political repression. It emphasizes the continuing temporality of such pervasive traumatizaton and the structural political stressors that underpin it. CTS thus entails a specifically political conception of trauma, according to which traumatic stress is in fact constituted by a violent, corrupt, unaccountable political and judicial system. This article argues that the traumatic experiences of activists in pre-and post-revolutionary Egypt are best perceived through the lens of CTS. It also insists that such traumatic stress—particularly the lack of justice and formal recourse—provided a fertile breeding ground for revenge and social polarization, which was directly incited by counter-revolutionary actors (such as the military and Muslim Brotherhood leadership), thereby sadly further contributing to the (seemingly endless) continuous cycle of continued traumatic stress.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"11 1","pages":"89-98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41745092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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