Performance Activism in the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Beyond

This book by Joseph Alagha examines social practice manifestations of performance activism among contemporary Islamic movements in the MENA and beyond. Performance Activism in the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Beyond links jurisprudential concepts of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies to Social Theory and International Relations theories, most notably Joseph Nye’s hard, soft, smart, and sharp power. Alagha highlights the social practices of contemporary Islamic movements, as soft power, by discussing changes in religious discourses on art and entertainment, the reception and consumption of pious art productions by different audiences, and the metamorphosis of Islamic ethics into aesthetic forms. This book explores Sunni and Shi‘i discourses on humor, music, political satire, and the performing arts, especially singing, dance, dark comedy, and revolutionary theater; Jihad through music among Islamic movements; the Salafi and Wahhabi conceptions of Anashid (“religious and ideological songs”); the “taranas” of the Taliban, and the opinions of the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah on performance activism or “Resistance Art.”