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Call For Papers: 'Towards a Palestinian Cultural Studies' Special Issue of Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication MEJCC provides a transcultural academic sphere that engages Middle Eastern and Western scholars in a critical dialogue about culture, communication and politics in the Middle East. It provides a forum for debate on the region's encounter with modernity and the ways in which this is reshaping people's everyday experiences. MEJCC's long- term objective is to provide a vehicle for developing the field of study into communication and culture in the Middle East. The Journal encourages work that reconceptualizes dominant paradigms and theories of communication to take into account local cultural particularities. MEJCC also supports work that challenges the static and suzerain epistemological frameworks through which the Middle East has been represented and perceived. This special issue continues in this tradition by calling for contributions on Palestinian cultural expressions as domains of power and/or struggle as they articulate with broader social, political, and economic processes. As scholars in the traditional social sciences and in area studies begin to open to the opportunity of studying popular culture as a site of (serious) political/social expression, and as scholars in disciplines such as anthropology and media/cultural studies widen their gaze to analyze the relationship of Palestinians (no matter their physical location) to different media and cultural expressions and processes, this is an appropriate time to theorize what may be called a 'Palestinian cultural studies.' This special edited volume calls on scholars rooted in various intellectual theories and methodologies to submit abstracts based on work that situates, problematizes and/or theorizes Palestinian culture (production, consumption, distribution) across historical and geographical spaces. Here, Palestine is envisioned as beyond a national and geographical paradigm, and culture is open-ended to include any means of individual or collective expression. Possible topics include: - The politics of Palestinian popular culture - Palestinian media industry and institutions (in the Territories and elsewhere) - Media-use among Palestinian populations (ethnographies, policies, political economy) - Refugees, exiles, occupied peoples, and negotiations of identity - Palestinian public spaces: landmarks, memorials, parks and national memory - Palestinian occupied spaces: checkpoints, by-pass roads, separation wall, borders - Alternative media: graffiti, cartoons, blogs, cassette tapes - Theater, performance, live music, rap, street art, demonstrations - Nationalism, modernity, and Islam - Social and religious movements in/and the media - Physical and virtual spaces of Palestine - Gendered discourses Please submit all proposals in abstract form (approximately 750 words), along with biographical and contact information by August 31, 2008. Prospective papers should be between 6000-7000 words, and upon acceptance, will be due January 15, 2009. Contributions and questions should be addressed to: Helga Tawil- Souri, Assistant Professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University: [log in to unmask] The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication is a peer- reviewed journal published twice a year by Brill, a leading publisher on Middle Eastern history, art and cultures. For more information see http://www.brill.nl/mjcc Helga Tawil-Souri Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, and Communication NYU 239 Greene St. 7th Fl. NY, NY 10003 212-992-9437 [log in to unmask]