[Book Review] Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image

Is the study of visual culture a legitimate field of interdisciplinary inquiry or a trendy movement? It is a question sharply debated by educators, curators, researchers, and others today. Among other things, opponents of visual culture are concerned that there is a blatant disregard for the essential differences between works of visual art, “fine art,” and other types of cultural artifacts. Some take the position that visual art is the sole province of art history and that visual culture studies wrongly includes every kind of visual artifact in their purview—including fine art. Proponents argue that visual culture is a valid research and curricular area, which takes the visual image as a focal point in the cultural context of meaning-making. The debate is complex; with many nuances, but essentially, it boils down to aesthetics verses utility.

The Crying Boy,' painted by Bruno Amadio,
was popular in Turkey during the 1970 and '80s.

Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image ("Visual Culture") situates itself squarely within this debate. By drawing upon theoretical insights from such fields as communication, global studies, history, Islamic studies, sociology, and art history, the text unfolds as a model of how visual culture may serve as an entry point among the disciplines that treat visuality. The thirteen essays address four topics — “moving” images, Islamic iconographies, satirical contestations, and authenticity and reality in trans-national broadcasting — wherein researchers explore the constructed nature and fluidity of Islamic and secular ideologies in public visual culture after the colonial period.

"Visual Culture" contributes to filling a gap in knowledge and understanding concerning how images are articulated locally, statewide, and regionally, as well as imported and re-articulated in the modern Middle East. This work moves the study of Islamic art forward from the twentieth to the twenty-first century by engaging the role of visual culture through the framework of formations of secular and Islamist registers in public culture.

Poor Christians and Muslims united in suffering during Lebanese Civil War.
Rich Christians and Muslims are united in ignoring them, Handhala observes.
Unpublished drawing, Naji al-Ali, 1978.

The aestheticization and politicization of suffering in the Turkish Islamic imagination as portrayed in the widely circulated and re-imagined image of the ‘Crying Boy’; the mural of Muhammad’s ascension on the exterior wall of a five-story building in Tehran; the iconography of Arab secularism in the powerful imagery of Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali: each invites methodological investigation to understand the roles of visual metaphors, icons, and other devices that construct meaning.

There is widespread use of imagery in the modern Middle East and there is a need to explore the role of imagery in that context. "Visual Culture" explicates how imagery functions rhetorically in speaking to individuals within those societies, for architects of social conventions, and about Middle East societies to the rest of the world. Communication scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, art history and Islamic art scholars, as well as educators and researchers interested in the modern Middle East will find this work useful to their research, teaching, and their students.

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Gruber, C., & Haugbolle, S. (Eds.). (2013).Visual culture in the modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the image. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press

Occupy Everything!



Rob Herron, III

There is nothing like seeing a unified mass of pissed off people overcoming the American traditions of social conditioning and identity illusion to make a statement against oppression. It’s just beautiful and it’s a phenomenon that hasn’t shown itself in this country since maybe the 60’s or 70’s. The “Occupy” movement is truly a rare sight during these days where so many powerful spirits and minds have been suppressed to maintain the status quo. This process is nothing new though, especially recently as we’ve had front row seats to the many revolts that popped up in Middle Eastern and African countries (I’ll come back to these). 

This time in history is clearly indicative of the need for Humanity to rise up and reclaim its authority, and what better platform for this message than America: the self proclaimed world leaders. I think that’s why the “Occupy” protests springing up in every American city have such a massive significance and a purpose that, honestly, could be in danger of being compromised. The protest itself is the movement because it accomplishes the most important thing an oppressed or deceived people must do to kick start change: speaking.

Specifically, purposeful speaking that calls out wrongdoers and helps to clarify the responsibility of the participants moving forward. But as this movement approaches a stage where its growth is exponential and the message can no longer be hidden by media outlets and the overall power structure the territory gets rocky. It’s at this point that unstable movements start to crumble mainly because the opportunists (both within and outside of the protest) start to show up. The things that people need to be most aware of are the always present human instincts to micromanage or provide a comforting distinction to something.

It’s at this point that the demonstrators and organizers whose hearts are immeasurably committed to achieving liberation have to take ownership of the efforts, or someone else less concerned will. There’s an “Occupy Everything” kind of mindset that defines the power structure that we’ve all been forced to adhere to and that attitude comes out particularly when its reign is threatened. It also comes out when it sees the opportunity to corrupt a pure movement of change, they just can’t pass that up.

Now back to the movements in the Middle East and Africa real quick. Many of the corrupt leaders of countries whose people were trying to overthrow them had to have American assistance to get to that oppressive state, but it was the Americans who swooped in to play savior or rather to stake claim in a place and people that are transitioning. The same idea will apply to the “Occupy” movement. There will be an effort to claim our message of freedom.  As a result we need to have an “Occupy Everything” approach too. We have to be of the mindset of reclaiming every right that has been usurped, every promise that has been skipped out on and every speck of truth that has been kept from us. There can’t be an outcome that falls short of that. If this happens we may see a world “Occupied” completely by liberated people. 

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Rob Herron is a graduate of the journalism school of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He freelances at 'The Call' in Kansas City. Rob is the author of the blog 'Just Thoughts.'

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