New book by Lila Abu-Lughod: The Politics of Television in Egypt

Cairo Magazine

"Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt" by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod is the first major work to analyze contemporary Egypt TV watching nation. 10 years went into researching and writing the book. Ten years spent watching television melodramas with Egypt’s subalterns to write a book that no one who watches television will ever read. It is an academic work that analyzes the “post-Orientalist epistemes” in the relationship between Egyptian melodramatic series and the (re)production of the nation/state.

In a region over-colonized by Western political scientists and journalists writing “behind the scenes” accounts, a book that takes seriously the oeuvre of Usama Anwar Ukasha (“the Naguib Mahfouz of Egyptian television”) comes as a breath of fresh air. >> continue (link updated)

SEE ALSO:

Lila Abu-Lughod: The Interpretation of Culture(s) After Television

Interview with Lila Abu-Lughod by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource

American Ethnologist Book review: "The Anthropology of Media: A Reader" and "Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain"

Book review "Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin: Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain (Australian Journal of AnthropologyAugust, 2004 by Jennifer Deger - findarticles.com)