The book, with the title MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN ART AGAINST AUTHORITARIANISM: AESTHETIC ACTIVISM AFTER THE ARAB UPRISINGS will be published in 2023 in the new IB Tauris academic book series: Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa. WE ARE LOOKING FOR CHAPTERS ON TURKEY, SYRIA, EGYPT AND PALESTINE.

The book examines the roles that art can play in the collective labor of creating and defending “another aesthetics” and social reality in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. By analyzing a variety of art practices that are articulated with different collective struggles in the region, this book elucidates the vitality and creativity of anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian artistic production whose praxis is enmeshed with grassroots movements across MENA.

In the Middle East and North Africa not only the Arab Spring left its political imprint on social life in the countries concerned, but it also marked a change in the democratization of artistic expression and understanding of the role of art in the protests (Walid and Soliman. 2013, Khatib 2013). In the last decade, there has been growing interest in art activism in the MENA region and the political significance of aesthetic representation (amongst others, Abaza 2016, El Hamamsy and Soliman 2013, Richter-Devroe and Salih 2014, Valassopoulos and Mostafa 2014). However, the question of how political aesthetics can develop resistance strategies against the authoritarian specter of near-absolute control and massive oppression in the aftermath of the uprisings in the region remains unexplored. Looking to the future, art activism represents an important terrain of study for understanding political dynamics, trends, and outcomes in the ongoing struggles between revolutionary movements and counterrevolutionary forces in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in the context of authoritarianism.

As many scholars have argued there is a persistent need to expose the various forms of repression that characterize the neo-liberal order today but there is also an urgent need to expose the forbidden truths about the nature of political authority. -- If art activism under authoritarianism is possible, can it not just resist but be resilient and foster emancipatory politics and possibilities for thinking and living in another world?

A decade after the Arab Spring, under persisting neocolonial ideology and authoritarian politics that censor and limit the conditions that make collective imagination, democratic participation and grassroots mobilization possible, aesthetic activism is increasingly a conditioning factor for social resistance. With examples from across MENA, this edited volume questions the aesthetic framing of politics that directs our gaze away from social struggles from below and toward the political theater of the state apparatus on the one hand, and discusses how activist aesthetics can cultivate a transformative potential for the idea and practice of a democratic life on the other.

As many scholars have argued there is a persistent need to expose the various forms of repression that characterize the neo-liberal order today but there is also an urgent need to expose the forbidden truths about the nature of political authority.