Compared with the profusion of literary and filmic representation of the Israeli—a tourist, soldier, or performer—venturing into the territory of the Egyptian other, there is relatively little cultural production depicting the Israeli Jew from the perspective of Egyptian authors and filmmakers. Egyptian incursions into Israel in the past included military operations (the 1948 War and the Fedayyin) and the airwaves (the broadcasting of “Kol ha-Ra’am mi-Kahir” / “Voice of Thunder from Cairo” and the showcasing of Egyptian films on Israel’s Channel 1 TV). The focus of this paper is on literary and cinematic Egyptian depictions of non-belligerent incursions into Israel where the film (e.g., Nadia Kamel’s “Salata Baladi”) or the literary work (e.g., Ali Salem’s “A Drive to Israel: An Egyptian Meets His Neighbors”) accentuate the moment of the first encounter with the Israeli other. In her ethnographic work on Israeli (Jewish) tourism to Arab countries with which Israel signed a peace treaty, Rebecca Stein deconstructs “first encounter” to demonstrate that this encounter is a highly fictionalized narrative because, among other considerations, in factuality it is rarely the first. In a similar vein, “The Egyptians Are Coming” expands on the highly constructed and fictionalized nature of the literary and cinematic narratives that portray an Egyptian first encounter with the Israeli other even in documentary filmmaking (Kamel) and memoirs (Salem). Among the most outstanding features of the Egyptian first encounter with the neighbor across the northern border in Egyptian literary and cinematic works is the dichotomy they create between the “good” Egyptian-Jew (or Arab-Jew) of the past and the threatening, arrogant, narrow-minded, and aggressive Israeli-Jew of the present. If the latter is perceived mostly in negative terms, the former is rendered not only as a kin, indigenous to the area, but as a proof for Egypt’s multicultural past where, according to the discourse these works imply, members of various nationalities, ethnicities, and faiths could live together harmoniously.

In 1972 Damascus hosted the First Festival for the Cinema of Young Filmmakers. In meetings during the festival itself and a follow up symposium in Beirut, filmmakers and critics from ten Arab states attempted to lay the groundwork for a new, alternative Arab cinema, one that would be independent of both commercial and narrow state national interests and encourage experimentation and innovation. This new cinema would be socially responsible and creative. It would engage with new practices and theories surrounding aesthetics, mediation and the gaze that were arising around the globe at that time. At the same time, it would create a distinctly Arab cinematic language such that the new films that would emerge from this movement would be more than mere copies of practices developed elsewhere. The 1972 festival came on the heels of declarations by young cineastes of new cinema movements within Egyptian and Algerian cinema industries. The cultural periodical Al-Hilal had already devoted an issue to the concept of “new cinema” in 1969. The festival itself led two journals, Al-ma`rifah in Syria and Al-Tariq in Lebanon to devote entire issues to the concept of alternative Arab cinema. New journals devoted to film as a serious art form rather than as popular entertainment were also launched in Syria and Lebanon at this time. In summarizing the achievements of alternative Arab cinema at the end of the decade, the Lebanese film critic Walid Shumayt could point to a number of independent filmmakers and thoughtful, innovative works that had been produced in a variety of contexts: public sector cinema, co-productions, newly emerging commercial enterprises, and film collectives. However, alternative Arab cinema never developed as an organized movement. This paper explores the context and conditions of the 1972 conference and its aftermath to explain what was at stake in creating such a film movement, why it failed to coalesce, and the implications of both the attempt and failure to create it had on the development of cinema in the Arab world in the ensuing decades.

This paper explores the ways in which specific configurations of Muslim identity are constructed against Islamist characters in two Egyptian television series Ad-Dā`iyah (The Islamic Preacher) airing in 2013 and Duniyaa Jadidah (A New World) airing in 2015. Two examples of recent Egyptian drama, the series revolve around the issue of representation (religious and political) in the highly fluid socio-religious-political landscape of the contemporary Egyptian context. Both series address the question of who speaks for Islam in Egypt, specifically, and the larger global Ummah. This question is explored against the backdrop of the uprisings in 2011, the election and removal of Mohammad Morsi, and the current leadership of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Specifically, I will trace how Islamist characters and agendas are othered in these series in order to configure an Egyptian Muslim identity that reflects the authoritarian political narrative, where the government also emerges as a protector of Islam. Both series utilize the platform of religious television programs to put forward a particular narrative that is distanced from any ideology that is deemed “Islamist.” The definition of Islamism in the dramas are colored by the governmental narrative and can be seen in the mutually consistent depictions of the Islamist characters and their singular agendas—to control the religious narrative and to establishing a caliphate in the place of the current government. The main characters of both series are juxtaposed with Islamist characters who challenge the Muslim identity propagated by both in the religious television programs that they host. In both series, the image of the “moderate” Muslim is constructed around the highly contentious religious and political discourse in Egypt from 2011 to the present. Moreover, the two series illustrate the way in which religious programming (and discourse) is employed in the service of political and social aims and are not politically neutral spaces. In my discussion, I will argue that religious and political discourse are intimately interwoven in Ad-Dā`iyah and Duniyaa Jadidah and that Egyptian Muslim identity is configured against the image of the Islamist in these two series

The political thriller Valley of the Wolves (Kurtlar Vadisi) and the Ottoman costume drama Magnificent Century (Muhteşem Yüzyıl) are among the most popular, profitable, and widely-distributed Turkish TV dramas in a sector that is second only to the US in terms of global reach. Though the two shows work by very different dramatic logics and target very different audiences in terms of gender and education level, both have been hugely controversial in Turkey due to their blending of “fact” and “fiction” and the resultant concerns this has caused regarding their effects on audiences. These concerns, raised by individual citizens, non-governmental organizations, commentators on news media and talk shows, regulatory bodies such as the High Council on Radio and Television (RTÜK), and a number of media scholars, both stem from and reinforce an overarching discourse on media effects in Turkey that posits audiences as “ignorant” (cahil) and in need of protection from harmful programming. In the case of Valley and Century, this discourse was greatly bolstered by the reactions of audiences to the deaths of key characters in the programs. Valley fans became legendary for mourning the death of Mafia boss Suleyman Çakır in a range of forms including moments of silence in football stadiums and obituary announcements in the newspaper. Similarly, Century viewers turned out en masse to visit the tomb of Şehzade (Prince) Mustafa in Bursa after the execution of his character on the show. While such reactions are frequently taken as evidence of fans’ failure to distinguish fact from fiction, this interpretation ignores the consciously performative aspects of fan behavior. In this paper, I first examine the discursive framing of fan reactions to the death of these characters in Turkish TV and print media and then compare this with ethnographic accounts for the logics of this reaction from from fans, which emphasize varied rationales for performative mourning. Ultimately I suggest that the “ignorant” audience might be best understood self-serving construct of the Turkish news cycle.