Based on an award-winning thesis, this volume is a pioneering study of musical theatre and popular culture and its relation to the production of identity in Lebanon in the second half of the twentieth century. In the aftermath of the departure of the French from Lebanon and the civil violence of 1958, the Rahbani brothers (Asi and Mansour) staged a series of folkloric musical theatrical extravaganzas at the annual Ba‘labakk festival which highlighted the talents of Asi’s wife, the Lebanese diva Fairouz, arguably the most famous living Arab singer. The inclusion of these folkloric vignettes into the festival’s otherwise European dominated cultural agenda created a powerful nation-building combination of what Partha Chatterjee calls the ‘appropriation of the popular’ and the ‘classicization of tradition.’ The Rahbani project coincides with the confluence of increasing internal and external migration in Lebanon, as well as with the rapid development of mass media technology, of which the Ba'labakk festival can be seen as an extension. Employing theories of nationalism, modernity, globalism and locality, this book shows that these factors combined to give the project a potent identity-forming power. Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon is the first study of Fairouz and the Rahbani family in English and will appeal to students and researchers in the field of Middle East studies, Popular culture and musical theatre.

Sune Haugbolle's often poignant book chronicles the battle over ideas that emerged from the wreckage of the Lebanese civil war.

Since its emergence in the 1920s, Iraqi-Kurdish theatre was used as a tool of national identity building and modernisation. It promoted literacy, education and women's rights and became one of the most visible forms of Kurdish cultural nationalism by exploring folklore, myths, legends and local history and by celebrating heroes of the past. As time went on, by staging anti-feudalist and anti-monarchist plays, theatre became engaged in representing and legitimising the wider political movement in Iraq that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. Between 1975-1991, even under strict censorship during the Baath rule, Kurdish theatre continued to promote Kurdish nationalism and resistance through the use of Kurdish folk culture and literature. This book is based on dramatic texts from the period, interviews with Kurdish theatre artists, Kurdish theatre histories, historical documents, and journalistic accounts. It illustrates the ways in which theatre participated in the Kurdish national struggle and how it responded to political changes in different historical periods. It is the first book dedicated to Kurdish theatre and complements the latest research that examines theatre in its wider socio-political context.

The question of belonging has formed the basis of the political, religious and cultural tensions in Lebanon, to the point that sectarian conflict on the country's future contributed significantly to the outbreak of civil war in 1975. This book focuses on the development of the Phoenician-Lebanese movement that struggled against the hegemonic status of Arabic language and culture. The Phoenician-Lebanese were a predominantly Maronite Christian group who attempted to remove themselves from the Muslim and Arab world throughout the twentieth century. Their demands for self-definition as a nation and their desire to establish their own culture were rooted in the concept of their ancient Phoenician past. Basilius Bawardi examines four prominent authors who formed the basis on which all engaged so-called Phoenician literature was built: Sharl Qurm, Sa'id 'Aql, Mayy Murr and Muris 'Awwad. The literary corpus of these writers was a critical component of the political activity that strove to distinguish the native Lebanese inhabitants from their Arab-Muslim neighbours.Studying these authors' works in both a literary and historical way, Bawardi shows how language was used to promote a specific political agenda and identifies the strong connections between language, literature and nation building. As well as revealing the nationalist struggle as it emerges in prose and poetry, the book discusses the history and formation of modern day Lebanon and why language and literature are so crucial for members of a national minority.

The Lebanese civil war, which spanned the years of 1975 to 1990,caused the migration of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens, many of whom are still writing of their experiences. Jumana Bayeh presents an important and major study of the literature of the Lebanese diaspora. Focusing on novels and writings produced in the aftermath of Lebanon's protracted civil war, Bayeh explores the complex relationships between place, displacement and belonging, and illuminates the ways in which these writings have shaped a global Lebanese identity. Combining history with sociology, Bayeh examines how the literature borne out of this expatriate community reflects a Lebanese diasporic imaginary that is sensitive to the entangled associations of place and identity. Paving the way for new approaches to understanding diasporic literature and identity, this book will be vital for researchers of migration studies and Middle Eastern literature, as well as those interested in the cultures, history and politics of the Middle East.

This book provides an overview of the growing field of screenwriting research and is essential reading for both those new to the field and established screenwriting scholars. It covers topics and concepts central to the study of screenwriting and the screenplay in relation to film, television, web series, animation, games and other interactive media, and includes a range of approaches, from theoretical perspectives to in-depth case studies. 44 scholars from around the globe demonstrate the range and depths of this new and expanding area of study. As the chapters of this Handbook demonstrate, shifting the focus from the finished film to the process of screenwriting and the text of the screenplay facilitates valuable new insights. This Handbook is the first of its kind, an indispensable compendium for both academics and practitioners.

Building on the work of star studies scholars, this collection provides contextual analyses of off-screen representation, as well as close textual analyses of films and star personas, thereby offering an in-depth study of the Arab star as text and context of Arab cinema. Using the tools of audience reception studies, the collection will also look at how stars (of film, stage, screen and new media) are viewed and received in different cultural contexts, both within and outside of the Arabic-speaking world. Arab cinema is often discussed in terms of political representation and independent art film, but rarely in terms of stardom, glamour, performance or masquerade. Aside from a few individual studies on female stardom or aspects of Arab masculinity, no major English-language study on Arab stardom exists, and collections on transnational stars or world cinema also often neglect to include Arab performers. This new book seeks to address this gap by providing the first study dedicated entirely to stardom on the Arab screen. Structured chronologically and thematically, this collection highlights and explores Arab film, screen and music stars through a transnational and interdisciplinary set of contributions that draw on feminist, performance and film theories, media studies, sound studies, material culture, queer star and celebrity studies, and social media studies.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: keine, American University of Beirut, course: Cultural Boundaries and Identities, language: English, abstract: The paper will analyze the nationalist movements and national sentiments of four entities: Quebec, Lebanon, Israel and Greece, and attempt a comparison with the conditions for a vital national identity in Lebanon. It will be suggested that the internal differences in Lebanon, dominated by a very intolerant ethnic marker, namely religion, are so predominant that they overshadow any kind of national identity that can detach Lebanese society from their sub-national attachments in order to generate national sentiments for all Lebanese people. Complicating this condition, also foreign intervention through alliances with the various groups within Lebanon comes into play. Using the Québécois, the Israeli and the Greek example, it shall be shown that a certain amount of internal unity is needed to create sentiments of belonging. Only then, art can play a significant role in enhancing national identity through symbols and material objects. Québec developed a strong legal code to protect its distinct Québécois nature against English-speaking Canada. In Greece, the Orthodox Church took the responsibility of safeguarding not only religion, but also language, folklore, dance and literature against Turkish domination and the post-Ottoman conflict over territory. Israel had and still has to struggle with the construction of a national identity that is based on the ethnic marker religion. Furthermore, the political state had to embrace various Jewish communities with different cultural habits and customs and define what kind of Jewish life is truly acceptable. Hence, cultural customs have been defined in order to create a distinct Israeli identity. For our purposes, we refer to the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Israeli perspective, being fully aware that we only spotlight one certain

Beirut is the cultural, commercial and economic hub of Lebanon. But to what extent has the city affected and shaped the formation and perceptions of Lebanese national identity? Ghenwa Hayek here explores how anxieties over the past, present and future of Beirut have been articulated through a sense of dislocation present in Lebanese writing since the 1960s. Drawing on theories of cultural studies, geography and history, the author uses an interdisciplinary framework to explore the role that spaces - from rural to urban - have played and continue to play in the defining, and re-defining, of national identity in the seventy years since the creation of the Lebanese nation state. This theoretical perspective coupled with a close reading of little-explored contemporary writings lead Hayek to question the predominant assumption that Lebanese novelists only became engaged in discourses about place identity and individual and social belonging with the start of the fifteen-year civil war and the destruction of Beirut's city centre. Instead, the book shows that particular geographical imaginaries have been mobilized to describe, question and debate Lebanese identity since the 1960s and that some go back even further into the late nineteenth century. This re-reading calls for a re-evaluation of some of the most predominant assumptions about Lebanon and the processes of Lebanese identity formation across the country's modern history. Examining a wide range of modern and contemporary literature, Hayek charts the rise to cultural prominence of the city of Beirut as a significant player in shaping perceptions of Lebanese culture and identity.