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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
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