1st Edition

Arabs, Politics, and Performance

Edited By Roaa Ali, George Potter, Samer Al-Saber Copyright 2025
306 Pages
by Routledge

306 Pages
by Routledge

306 Pages
by Routledge

This book is a ground-breaking collection on contemporary Arab theatre. Through three sections discussing occupation and resistance, diaspora, migration, and refugees, and nationalism and belonging, this study provides nuanced responses to the contested points of intersection between Arab culture and the West, as well as many of the major concerns within contemporary Arab theatre. The... Read more

Part 1 Identity and Resistance

1. Historiographical Conundrums in Palestinian Theatre Research

Samer Al-Saber

2. The Iraqi Home/Land under Siege: House as Metaphor in Abdul Razaq Al-Rubai’s A Strange Bird on Our Roof

Amir Al-Azraki and James Al-Shamma

3. Palestinian Theatre: Alienation, Mediation, and Assimilation in Cross-Cultural Research and Practice

Gary M. English

4. Across Borders and Thresholds: Shakespeare’ Othello and Hamlet in the Arab World

Khalid Amine

5. The Maghreb on the American Stage: The "Barbary Wars" in Post-Independence US Theatre

Jeff Casey

6. Censorship and Creativity in Syrian Theatre: Saʾdallah Wannous’ A Soirée for the Fifth of June, The King’s Elephant, and The King Is King

Samar Zahrawi

Part 2 Diaspora, Migration, and Refugees

7. Strategies of Resistance: Arab American Dramatic Devices in the Battle Against Anti-Arab Stereotypes

Roaa Ali

8. Postmemory Nostalgia in Service of Nationalism

Bart Pitchford

9. ‘Can Everyone Hear Me?’: Arab Digital Performance and Border Crossing on UK Stages

Faisal Hamadah

10. Arab Voices on the European Stage: Between Fact and Fiction, Memory and Imagination

Sarah Youssef

11. Arab Muslim Stand-up and North American Religious Identities

Margaret Aziza Pappano

12. The Predicaments of Production: Public Discourse, Artistic Process, and Audience Response in Contemporary Arab American Theatre

Hala Baki

Part 3 Nationalism and Belonging

13. Stable Instability: Performing National Identity in Amman

George Potter

14. Globalisation LIVE! Arab Performance as Corporate Goodwill?

Yasmine Marie Jahanmir and Hassan Hajiyah

15. Sharjah Desert as a Site-Specific Theatrical Venue

Hadia Mousa

16. The Manifest Absence of Religion in Modern Egyptian Drama: The Case of Alfred Faraǧ

Daniela Potenza

17. Arabs/Muslims on American Stages: Foils for American Adventurism

Michael Malek Najjar

18. From the Karagoz to Ragi: Nasser as the Patron of an Indigenous Egyptian Political Theatre

Samy Selim

Biography

Roaa Ali is Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Manchester, UK.

George Potter is Associate Professor in the Department of English and the Walter G. Friedrich Professor of American Literature at Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA.

Samer Al-Saber is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Stanford University, USA. He is a member of the faculty at the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.