Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East

Front Cover
Sherifa Zuhur
American University in Cairo Press, 1998 - Art - 324 pages
This original and multidimensional book brings a refreshing new approach to the study of the arts of the Middle East. By dealing in one volume with dance, music, painting, and cinema, as experienced and practiced not only within the Middle East but also abroad, Images of Enchantment breaks down the artificial distinctions--of form, geography, 'high' and 'low' art, performer and artist--that are so often used to delineate the subjects and processes of Middle Eastern artistic culture. The eighteen essays in this book cover themes as diverse as Bedouin dance, the music of Arab Americans, cinema in Egypt and Iran, Hollywood representations of the Middle East, and contemporary Sudanese painting. The contributions come from scholars and critics and from the artists themselves. Together, they present a wide-ranging and holistic view of the arts in their social, political, anthropological, and gender contexts. Contributors: Walter Armbrust, Farida Ben Lyazid, Kay Hardy Campbell, Virginia Danielson, Marjorie Franken, Sondra Hale, Carolee Kent, Hamid Naficy, Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Anne K. Rasmussen, Selim Sednaoui, Simon Shaheen, Rebecca Stone, Chaïbia Talal, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, William Young, Sherifa Zuhur.

Contents

Folk Music and Dance
57
History Memory and Reimaging in Middle Eastern Music
81
Western Classical Music in Umm Kulthums Country
123
Beyond the Performance
157
The Artists Voice
183
Political and Gendered Imagery in Film
205
Iranian Cinema under the Islamic Republic
229
Farida Fahmy and the Dancers Image in Egyptian Film
265
Bibliography
301
Notes on Contributors
317
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

Sherifa Zuhur is an associate professor in the Department of History at the American University in Cairo and an associate professor in the Women's Studies Program at California State University, Sacramento. She is the author of Revealing Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt.

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