Brehony Louis, "Palestinian music in exile: voices of resistance", Le Caire, AUC Press, 2023 – El Rashidi Yasmine, "Laughter in the dark: Egypt to the tune of change", New York, Columbia Global Reports, 2023.

Abstract

The contributions of this special issue demonstrate a renewed scholarly interest in popular music in the Middle East in recent years. In the face of resilient Arab authoritarianism and the continuing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, it is not surprising that many scholars seek to identify a glimmer of hope in the everyday cultural practices of the dominated. The two volumes under consideration are representative of this scholarly impetus, as well as the challenges it must overcome to attain a better understanding of “music in everyday life”: namely articulating art and politics without collapsing one into the other, and resisting the temptation to employ the notion of resistance in an all-encompassing fashion, with the straightforward narratives that such an approach entails.
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