[ecrea] New Book: The Naked Blogger of Cairo: Creative Insurgency in the Arab World

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New Book:

/The Naked Blogger of Cairo: Creative Insurgency in the Arab World/

Harvard University Press, June 2016

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737082

Uprisings spread like wildfire across the Arab world from 2010 to 2012, 
fueled by a desire for popular sovereignty. In Tunisia, Egypt, and 
Syria, protestors flooded the streets and the media, voicing dissent 
through slogans, graffiti, puppetry, videos, and satire that called for 
the overthrow of dictatorial regimes.

Investigating what drives people to risk everything to express 
themselves in rebellious art, /The Naked Blogger of Cairo/ uncovers the 
creative insurgency at the heart of the Arab uprisings. While 
commentators have stressed the role of social media, Marwan M. Kraidy 
shows that the essential medium of expression was not texting or Twitter 
but the human body. Brutal governments that coerced citizens through 
torture and rape found themselves confronted with the bodies of 
protestors. Activists challenged authority in brazen acts of 
self-immolation, nude activism, and hunger strikes. The bodies of 
dictators became a focus of ridicule. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was 
rendered as a pathetic finger puppet, while Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak became 
a regurgitating cow. As Kraidy argues in 38 short, punchy and accessible 
chapters, technology publicizes defiance, but the body remains the vital 
nexus of physical struggle and digital communication, destabilizing 
distinctions between “the real world” and virtual reality, spurring 
revolutionary debates about the role of art, and anchoring Islamic 
State’s attempted hijacking of creative insurgency.

**

/Reviews/

“The Naked Blogger of Cairois yet another testament to the range and 
ingenuity of Marwan Kraidy’s scholarship. He is without a doubt our most 
insightful critic of Arab media, and this book is essential reading for 
our times.”—Michael Curtin, University of California, Santa Barbara

“In The Naked Blogger of Cairo, Marwan Kraidyoffers a fascinating 
account of the workings of power and resistance in a digitally connected 
Middle East that will shake confidence in conventional narratives about 
the cultural dynamics of the Arab uprisings. It is an original 
contribution and essential reading for those who want to move beyond 
clichéd frames and facile analyses.”—Mohamed Zayani, Georgetown University**

**

/Contents/

List of Illustrations

I. In the Name of the People: The People Want/ The Dictator’s Two 
Bodies/Creative Insurgency

II. Burning Man: Protest Suicide/Viral Pain/The Defender/A Bad Rap/Down 
and Out in Tunis/Loaves of Contention/A Better Future

III. Laughing Cow: Pharaoh’s Health/A Digital Body Politic/Living 
Martyr/Funny Men/Laughing Cow/The Poodle and the Bear/The Lion and the 
Eagle/The Dictator’s Tear

IV. Puppets and Masters: An Eye for an Eye?/The Upper 
Hand/Sprayman/Stencil Standstill//Top Goon//Giving Bashar the Finger/In 
Sickness and in Health

V. Virgins and Vixens: The Naked Blogger of Cairo/The Aesthetics of 
Disrobement/Dutiful Daughter/Blue Bra Girl/Vigilance and 
Virulence/Sextremism and Islamophobia/The “Liberals”’ Dilemma/Abstract 
Bodies?

VI. Requiem for a Revolution?: Concept Pop?/The 
Creative-Curatorial-Corporate Complex/The Daesh Stain/Another 
Pharaoh?/The Specter of Death

Notes/Acknowledgments/Index

**

/Bio/

Marwan Kraidy is Anthony Shadid Chair in Global Media, Politics and 
Culture and Founding Director of the Project for Advanced Research in 
Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, 
University of Pennsylvania, USA. His books include /Hybridity, or the 
Cultural Logic of Globalization/(Temple University Press, 2005) and 
/Reality Television and Arab Politics/ (Cambridge University Press, 
2010), which won three major prizes.


*-----*

*Marwan M. Kraidy*

Professor of Communication

The Anthony Shadid Chair in Global Media, Politics & Culture

Director, PARGC

Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication

Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities



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