Culture and Crisis in the Arab World

Since 2011, the art of the Arab uprisings has been the subject of much scholarly and popular attention. Yet the role of artists, writers and filmmakers themselves as social actors working under extraordinary conditions has been relatively neglected. Drawing on critical readings of Bourdieu’s Field Theory, this book explores the production of culture in Arab social spaces in ‘crisis’. In ten case studies, contributors examine a wide range of countries and conflicts, from Algeria to the Arab countries of the Gulf. They discuss among other things the impact of Western public diplomacy organisations on the arts scene in post-revolutionary Cairo and the consequences of dwindling state support for literary production in Yemen. Providing a valuable source of empirical data for researchers, the book breaks new ground in adapting Bourdieu’s theory to the particularities of cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa.

Richard Jacquemond is Professor of Modern Arabic Literature and Language at Aix-Marseille University and Director of The Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Muslim Worlds. He received his PhD in Arab Studies from the University Provence in 1999. He has published more than 40 articles, edited and written several books, and translated over 20 literary works from Arabic to French. He sits on the editorial board of Alif, Journal of Comparative Poetics, The Translator, and Arabica. Felix Lang is Research Fellow in the Department of Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of Marburg. He received his PhD in Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of Marburg in 2014. He is the author of The Lebanese Post-Civil War Novel: Memory, Trauma and Capital (2015).