Call for Book Proposals

Cinema and Media Cultures in the Middle East

Peter Lang Publishing

 

Book Series Editors:

  • Chris Lippard (University of Utah)
  • Terri Ginsberg (Concordia University, Montréal)

Book proposals are sought for publication in a new book series, Cinema and Media Cultures in the Middle East, the purpose of which is to demarcate and critically examine the shifting terrain of film- and media-making in the Middle East, and of practices of film and media studies regarding it, testing them both against their larger, social enabling conditions at the national, regional, and transnational levels. Titles in the series will engage recent developments in the field of Middle East film and media studies and will help point the field in an intellectually meaningful, pedagogically effective direction in relation to both current and, in some cases, significant, previously ignored, older work.

The proposed series is conceived at a moment during which Middle Eastern film and film criticism have begun to develop in new directions. Recent years have witnessed a modest increase in scholarly engagement with topics and modes of inquiry often previously considered outside academic discourse. A handful of books and special journal issues published in English over the past half-decade, focusing on specific Middle Eastern countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Iran, Palestine/Israel and Turkey, as well as the long-overdue establishment of cinema studies as an emerging field of academic inquiry within universities located in the Arab world, indicate a preponderance of previously unproblematized issues now circulating within the field. These include critical questions from queer and transgendered perspectives about the representation of women, and from indigenous and settler colonial studies perspectives about the representation of migrant workers and refugees, the growing importance of documentary, digital animation, and hybrid shooting, the continuing influence of global cinema imperatives, and the revival of interest in militant, revolutionary and third cinema aesthetics. Proposals should indicate an interest in engaging Middle Eastern cinema theoretically and/or historiographically, in challenging and innovative ways. Welcome are critical genealogies based in research at newly available film and document archives; new theoretical approaches to cinema of the region, including decolonial critiques of Western scholarship, and analyses that draw from important, seldom-referenced film critical texts in languages of the region; translations of key, book-length texts in these languages; and new interventions into neglected aspects of more traditional areas such as genre, auteur, and national film criticism. Likewise of interest are projects that engage philosophical and analytic theories and methodologies in order to shed critical light on contemporary conditions of cinematic production and reception in the Arab world and wider Middle East.

A successful proposal might therefore offer critical innovations in the study of stylistic and non-Western variants on theory, methodology, and argumentation; bring to the fore indigenous, decolonial, queer, transnational, and new media approaches to Middle Eastern cinematic representation; make available important texts previously inaccessible to Anglophone readers; and provide intellectually challenging avenues for comprehending, analyzing, and understanding contemporary and historical cultural politics and systems in the Middle East region.

Please send inquiries, or submit your book prospectus along with supporting material, usually an abstract, one or two sample chapter(s), and your curriculum vitae, to:

Chris Lippard (University of Utah) – c.lippard@utah.edu

and

Terri Ginsberg (Concordia University, Montréal) – terri.ginsberg@concordia.ca

 

Editorial Advisory Board

  • Greg Burris (American University of Beirut)
  • Patricia Caillé (Université de Strasbourg)
  • Donatella Della Ratta (John Cabot University)
  • Kay Dickinson (University of Glasgow)
  • Kevin Dwyer (Independent Scholar)
  • Sarah El-Richani (The American University in Cairo)
  • Hadi Gharabaghi (Drew University)
  • Iman Hamam (The American University in Cairo)
  • Hossein Khosrowjah (St. Mary’s College of California)
  • Bindu Menon (Azim Premji University)
  • Najat Rahman (Université de Montréal)
  • Helga Tawil-Souri (New York University)
  • Alia Yunis (New York University Abu Dhabi)