Publications
War and Memory in Lebanon (Sune Haugbølle)
From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon endured one of the most protracted and bloody civil wars of the twentieth century. Sune Haugbolle's timely and often poignant book chronicles the battle over ideas that emerged from the wreckage of that war. While the Lebanese state encouraged forgetfulness and political parties created sectarian interpretations of the war through cults of dead leaders, intellectuals and activists - inspired by the example of truth and reconciliation movements in different parts of the world - advanced the idea that confronting and remembering the war was necessary for political and cultural renewal. Through an analysis of different cultural productions - media, art, literature, film, posters, and architecture - the author shows how the recollection and reconstruction of political and sectarian violence that took place during the war have helped in Lebanon's healing process. He also shows how a willingness to confront the past influenced the popular uprising in Lebanon after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East
-Rhetoric of the Image (Christiane Gruber, Sune Haugbolle)
This timely book examines the power and role of the image in modern Middle Eastern societies. The essays explore the role and function of image making to highlight the ways in which the images “speak” and what visual languages mean for the construction of Islamic subjectivities, the distribution of power, and the formation of identity and belonging. Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East addresses aspects of the visual in the Islamic world, including the presentation of Islam on television; on the internet and other digital media; in banners, posters, murals, and graffiti; and in the satirical press, cartoons, and children’s books.
Order at Indiana University Press
Politics of Worship in the Contemporary Middle East (Andreas Bandak, Sune Haugbølle et al.)
In Sainthood in Fragile States, a wide range of social scientists explore the contested role of sainthood in the contemporary Middle East. By expanding the notion of sainthood to cover both the religious and secular ways of dealing with extraordinary events, people and things, the volume offers new insights into the way sainthood is embedded in various levels of everyday life, as well as national and international politics. The case studies highlight how fragility as a central aspect of sainthood is a productive force that often consolidates tales of the extraordinary, and is also the source of contesting social identities.
Contributors include: Andreas Bandak, Mikkel Bille, Jürgen Frembgen, Sune Haugbolle, Angie Heo, Daniella Kuzmanovic, Edith Szanto, and Pnina Werbner.
Order at Brill
Reflections on Ideology After the Arab Uprisings (Sune Haugbølle)
A key conceptual problem for observers of the Arab uprisings–academics and journalists alike–continues to be how to classify and assess the ideological transformations taking place. “The people want the downfall of the regime,” the central slogan of the uprisings, has been interpreted as anything from a return to pan-Arab sentiments to a new Arab liberalism. For some, it signaled the unification of action around a single idea that resisted the atomization of Arab societies under the neoliberal-military-Western nexus of power. Many in the West now regard the revolutionary potential more skeptically, not least due to Islamist parties winning elections. The question is whether the uprisings have produced original ideas that can foment new ideological formations, or if things have merely changed in order to stay the same?
DIE VERWIRRUNGEN DER ZÖGLINGE NAJAFS – REFORMKONZEPTE IN DER UND ÜBER DIE AWZA IM FRÜHEN 20. JAHRHUNDERT (Miriam Younes)
The article deals with the reform concepts within the awza of Najaf in the early 20th century. It analyses articles published in the Shiite journal al-Irfn by members of the group al-shabba al- milya al-najafya The Najafi-mil-Youth. The shabba was founded in 1925 by young students of Najaf who embraced a radical and comprehensive critique and corresponding agenda of transformation and reform within the religious, political, and societal spheres.
Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Metpher. Kommunistische Vergangenheit und gegenwärtige Unbehaustheit in Maher Abi Samaras Film We were Communists (Miriam Younes, Manfred Sing)