This book examines the ways in which women in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa have re-imagined revolutionary discourses through creativity and collective action as a means of resistance. Encompassing a stunning array of forms and genres, such as graffiti, street performance, photography, phototexts, novels, and comics, the book draws from a vast spectrum of artistic production in revolutionary periods between 2011 and 2022 in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. El Nossery sheds light on women's postrevolutionary artistic output by engaging an interdisciplinary approach: the book is divided into three sections which foreground the unique relationship between textual, visual, and performative modes as they intertwine with art and politics. Arab Women's Revolutionary Art thereby aims to demonstrate how art, as always oriented towards an open future, can preserve the revolutionary spirit that was sparked in 2011 by documenting what happened and determining which stories would be told. The revolution, therefore, continues.
"The Arab Revolutions invariably failed to cause democratic transformation, but they triggered significant changes in the social, cultural, and artistic domains. Nevine El Nossery's important book highlights the 'artistic revolution' championed by women who brought creative works-- graffiti, street performance, photography, photo-texts, and comics-- to bear on defying illegitimate power and extend the horizon of emancipatory politics."
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Asef Bayat, Catherine & Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and transnational Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
This book examines the ways in which women in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa have re-imagined revolutionary discourses through creativity and collective action as a means of resistance. Encompassing a stunning array of forms and genres, such as graffiti, street performance, photography, phototexts, novels, and comics, the book draws from a vast spectrum of artistic production in revolutionary periods between 2011 and 2022 in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. El Nossery sheds light on women's postrevolutionary artistic output by engaging an interdisciplinary approach: the book is divided into three sections which foreground the unique relationship between textual, visual, and performative modes as they intertwine with art and politics.
Arab Women's Revolutionary Art thereby aims to demonstrate how art, as always oriented towards an open future, can preserve the revolutionary spirit that was sparked in 2011 by documenting what happened and determining which stories would be told. The revolution, therefore, continues.
Nevine El Nossery is Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her expertise extends to Francophone and postcolonial studies, women's writing, art and politics. She is the author of Egypt in Focus: Creativity in Adversarial Contexts (co-edited volume, 2021); The Unspeakable: Representations of Trauma in Francophone Literature and Art (co-edited volume, 2013); Frictions et devenirs dans les e?critures migrantes au fe?minin (co-edited volume, 2012); and Te?moignages fictionnels au fe?minin. Une re?e?criture des blancs de la guerre civile alge?rienne (2012).
