Research & Publications: Culture and Society

This essay discusses the recent spate of attacks upon and heightened sense of insecurity felt by Egyptian Coptic Christians. The essay focuses on Copts' growing frustration with state authorities' responses to their grievances.

A formerly flourishing industry—bogged with censor's increasingly puerile whims, higher ticket prices, piracy, and state backlash after 2011—sees a resurgence spearheaded by Cairo's first alternative movie house Zawya ('angle').

Since its inception in 1993, the Sharjah Biennial has become the biggest art event in the Arab world.

This essay looks at sectarianism from the perspective of minority studies. The author argues that if sectarianism is understood as a struggle for power over national truths and national resources, then a persistent overemphasis on labeling minority/majority categories could contribute to the form and force of sectarian discourse and politics.

The multiple threats to the Middle East’s historical monuments have prompted Saudi conservationist, Rana al-Kadi, to push for the preservation of Islamic heritage in the region. Article by Drew Brammer.

This essay discusses private halal certification agencies, which have come to serve as a source of moral authority. The certificates that these agencies issue serve as “judgment devices” that allow entrepreneurs and consumers to transcend doubt about the quality and value of the products offered in the market. But what explains the authority of these agencies, which were able to turn pious aspirations into professional pursuit of analyzing and attesting to a business’s halal status? The argument here is that the authority of the certifiers is partly derived from transnational valuation circuits, through which local certification agencies draw on the authority of more established accreditors.

Tramontane, one of the most accomplished Arab productions of 2016, is a moving, impressively subtle study of the lingering legacy of the Lebanese Civil War.

Director Jamal al-Moosawai wanted the new National Museum of Oman to be a space that grows and expands with its knowledge base, and is in tune with ongoing archaeological discoveries in the Arab country.