Joseph Alagha – författare

This book by Joseph Alagha examines social practice manifestations of performance activism among contemporary Islamic movements in the MENA and beyond.Performance Activism in the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Beyond links jurisprudential concepts of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies to Social Theory and International Relations theories, most notably Joseph Nye’s hard, soft, smart, and sharp power. Alagha highlights the social practices of contemporary Islamic movements, as soft power, by discussing changes in religious discourses on art and entertainment, the reception and consumption of pious art productions by different audiences, and the metamorphosis of Islamic ethics into aesthetic forms. This book explores Sunni and Shi‘i discourses on humor, music, political satire, and the performing arts, especially singing, dance, dark comedy, and revolutionary theater; Jihad through music among Islamic movements; the Salafi and Wahhabi conceptions of Anashid (“religious and ideological songs”); the “taranas” of the Taliban, and the opinions of the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah on performance activism or “Resistance Art.”

The Lebanese Shi‘ite resistance movement, Hizbullah, is going through a remarkable political and ideological transformation. Hizbullah was founded in 1978 by various sectors of Lebanese Shi‘ite clergy and cadres, and with Iranian backing as an Islamic movement protesting against social and political conditions. Over the years 1984/85 to 1991, Hizbullah became a full-fledged social movement in the sense of having a broad overall organization, structure, and ideology aiming at social change and social justice, as it claimed. Starting in 1992, it became a mainstream political party working within the narrow confines of its pragmatic political program. The line of argument in this dissertation is that Hizbullah has been adjusting its identity in the three previously mentioned stages by shifting emphasis among its three components: (1) from propagating an exclusivist religious ideology (2) to a more encompassing political ideology, and (3) to a down-to-earth political program.

A reliable reference work that includes accurate English translations of Hizbullah’s primary documents with adequate commentaries and relevant background information that spans three decades.

This book examines one of the world's most turbulent regions; a major contribution to the study of contemporary Islamic political movements in the Middle East; and a refreshing departure from the bland hagiographies and ad hominem attacks that are all too common in studies of Hizbullah's murky history.