scholarly journals Muslim Stand-Up Comedy in the US and the UK: Incongruity, Everydayness, and Performativity

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 801
Author(s):  
Lamiae Aidi
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk

The objectives of this article are two-fold: to provide a review of the major figures and trends in Muslim American comedy and discuss certain techniques and approaches that have been used by stand-up comedians to counter predominant and discriminatory perceptions of the “Other”. To reiterate film critic Jack Shaheen’s argument in Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, the Western public is fed constructions of Islam as a “problem”; the terms “Arab” and “Muslim” are interchangeably used; Muslim men are depicted as “terrorists”; and Muslim women are depicted as “veiled and oppressed”. Much has been written on the generation and effect of stereotypes promoted by popular culture. However, stereotyped groups also use popular culture to speak for themselves. Popular culture also functions to resist, counter, push back against, and subvert stereotypes. In other words, the “Other” can speak for him or herself through popular culture as a means of contesting stereotypes that define Muslims and Arabs in terms of cultural and religious understandings that narrowly categorize individuals through attributes such as religiosity and femininity. This potential is being realized by second-generation Muslims familiar with the platforms created and provided by other marginalized groups in Anglo-American popular culture, and their work has come into its own especially in the aftermath of 9/11, a time that saw both the intensification of stereotypes and heightening of Muslim American consciousness. I concentrate on these specific stand-up comedians in the US and the UK, despite the fact that there are others in the diaspora who discuss Islamophobia, because these American and British comedians address all of the three most common stereotypes of Muslims: “Arab = Muslim”, the “terrorist”, and the “veiled and oppressed woman”.

The Theatre of Bernard-Marie Koltès and the ‘Other Spaces’ of Translation

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Delgado ◽  
David Fancy
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
The Us ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

The work of the French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès, although phenomenally successful in continental Europe, has been staged less frequently in Anglo-American theatres; and a major feature on his work in NTQ49 in February 1997, and the publication by Methuen later in the same year of a collection of three of his plays in English translation, brought him only belated recognition in print. In this paper, first presented at a recent gathering in France to mark the tenth anniversary of Koltès's death, Maria Delgado and David Fancy trace the trajectory of a number of his plays through the space of translation, including Roberto Zucco, Dans la solitude des champs de coton (In the Solitude of the Cottonfields), Quai Ouest (Quay West), and Combat de nègre et de chiens (Black Battles with Dogs). Koltès asserted in 1986 that ‘I have always somewhat disliked the theatre because theatre is the opposite of life; but I always come back to it and love it because it is the one place where you can say: this is not life’; and the poetic specificity of his work has posed significant challenges for an Anglo-American theatre culture imbued with actors' identification with character. Relying on testimonials from a variety of directors, translators, and actors, as well as evidence from productions in the UK, Ireland, and the US, the authors, who are both Koltès translators, trace the challenges that have faced English-speaking artists wishing to stage this demanding writer. Maria Delgado is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and David Fancy is a freelance director based in Canada who is currently completing a PhD on Koltès's work.

Culture and the popular: Introduction to essays in memory of Brian Rigby

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-299
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Us ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Uk ◽  
French Cultural Studies

This article introduces the special number of French Cultural Studies commemorating the role of Brian Rigby as the journal’s first Managing Editor. It situates his contribution in the emergence of cultural history and French cultural studies during the rapid expansion of higher education from the 1960s in France, the UK, the US and other countries. It suggests that these new areas of study saw cultural activities in a broader social context and opened the way to a wider understanding of culture, in which popular culture played an increasingly important part. It argues that the study of popular culture can illuminate some of the most mundane experiences of everyday life, and some of the most challenging. It can also help to understand the rapidly changing cultural environment in which our daily lives are now conducted.

Friend or Foe? The US Invades Grenada

2015 ◽  
pp. 93-144
Author(s):  
Sally-Ann Treharne
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
International Community ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Caribbean Island ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Eastern Caribbean ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
The Uk

The US-led invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada at the alleged behest of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) on 25 October 1983 had a profound negative impact upon the development of the Special Relationship under Reagan and Thatcher. The dubious legality of the intervention was widely criticised by the international community, most notably the UK. And yet, it was the Thatcher government that bore the scars of considerable domestic criticism regarding the unlawful US involvement in the internal affairs of a member of the British Commonwealth. The US invasion of Grenada, or operation ‘Urgent Fury’ as it is otherwise known, raised important questions regarding the limits of British credibility and importance within the Anglo-American alliance.

The Origins of Neoliberalism and the Role of the German State

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-33
Author(s):  
Julian Germann
Keyword(s):  
International Political Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
German State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Corporate Profits ◽  
German Contribution

This chapter reviews the most prominent explanations of the global rise of neoliberalism provided within critical International Political Economy: (1) a state-centered argument, which holds that neoliberalism was imposed by the United States in a bid to reassert its global dominance; (2) a class-based argument, which sees neoliberalism as the project of globalizing elites who sought to restore their corporate profits and power; and (3) an ideational argument, which describes the rise of neoliberalism as a paradigmatic shift in economic ideas. The chapter argues that these accounts share a common bias: they pivot unduly on the Anglo-American world and are unable to capture the peculiar German contribution to the origins of neoliberalism. As a result, they misread the rise of Germany to the apex of a neoliberal Europe as a belated repetition of the same global movement spearheaded by the US and the UK.

The Impact of Non-trading Periods on the Measurement of Volatility

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 607-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaw-Huei Wang ◽  
Yu-Jen Hsiao
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Information ◽  
The Other ◽  
Day Trading ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Us ◽  
Macro News ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Based upon the theory of the "arrival of news", the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of non-trading periods on the measurement of volatility for the S&P 500, FTSE 100, and TAIEX indices. Using an adaptation of the GJR (1,1) model, we find that both weekday holiday periods and half-day trading periods have significant impacts on the estimation of volatility for the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 indices. On the other hand, weekends have significant impacts for the TAIEX index. Our findings imply that for the UK and US markets, much less relevant information is produced during weekends, while more relevant information continues to be produced during other types of non-trading periods. However, the weekend volatility of the Taiwan market is specially driven because the US macro news is announced on Fridays and the trading time of the US market is later than that of the Taiwan market without any overlapping.

Control and Corporate Rescue–An Anglo-American Evaluation

2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard McCormack
Keyword(s):  
Entrepreneurial Culture ◽  
The Us ◽  
Restructuring Process ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Bankruptcy Code ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Corporate Rescue ◽  
A Company ◽  
Administration Procedure

AbstractThis article compares and contrasts Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code with the UK administration procedure under the Insolvency and Enterprise Acts. It focuses in particular on who runs a company during the restructuring process—debtor-in-possession or management displacement in favour of an outside administrator. Various reasons have been given to explain the US/UK divergence in this respect including differences in entrepreneurial culture and differences in the lending markets in the two countries. The article suggests that the divergence cannot be reduced to a single factor but instead implicates a complex web of circumstances.

Dilemmas of Civil Tribunals in Formulating Their Positions toward Religious Tribunals

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-253
Author(s):  
Haya Sandberg ◽  
Haim Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Custody Of Children ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Israeli Supreme Court ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Civil Courts

The paper addresses the dilemmas of civil-secular tribunals when formulating a position toward decisions of religious tribunals with regard to the custody of children. The paper examines the approach of the Israeli Supreme Court toward rulings of Sharia and rabbinical courts, comparing them with similar tensions in the US, Canada, and the UK. Civil courts appear to be entirely committed to civil, non-religious law. Religious tribunals, however, although committed to act in accordance with the fundamental principles of state civil law, are also obligated to act in accordance with religious law. The paper argues that the extent of the above tension is much more limited than it appears at first glance. There is an attempt to reconcile the need to protect women and children on one hand with freedom of religion, multiculturalism, and the rights of ethnic minorities and immigrants, on the other.

Disciplining the Hegemon

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-163
Author(s):  
Julian Germann
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Exchange ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Carter Administration ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Japanese Investment ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk

This chapter argues that in order to protect its export model from the dangers of imported inflation, Germany strove to commit the US to monetary and fiscal rigor. To this end, German officials blocked the attempts of the Carter administration to organize a global Keynesian expansion, and scaled back their foreign exchange interventions in support of a weakening dollar. Both actions helped push the US into the Volcker Shock, which deflated the world economy and launched the attack on organized labor. The chapter concludes that the neoliberal experiment in the US, paralleled and reinforced by similar attempts in the UK, was late and lucky. Rather than the outcome of a decade-long domestic shift—seamless and sealed off from the world outside the Anglo-American heartland—the neoliberal counter-revolution was driven in part by the external pressures imposed by Germany, and subsequently sustained by a bout of Japanese investment.

Rhythm and Bluebeat

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Sean Lorre
Keyword(s):  
Rock Music ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
African Caribbean ◽  
Social Scene ◽  
Indian Immigrant ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk

Retrospectively referred to as blue beat, “Jamaican rhythm and blues” (JA-R&B) was one of many R&B styles performed and consumed in the UK during the early 1960s. Despite the genre’s importance to African-Caribbean migrant communities, urban subcultures, and, eventually, mainstream British popular music, JA-R&B is often relegated to a side note in the histories of Jamaican ska/reggae and British blues. This essay recuperates the production, emulation, consumption and mediation of JA-R&B into a broader narrative of the British R&B boom, a phenomenon often understood as a precursor to the British Invasion and the (re)birth of rock music as a major force in Anglo-American popular culture. As this essay details, JA-R&B was the product of a complex web of cultural interaction animated by a confluence of black Americans, Jamaicans of various ethnicities (living at home and abroad), and white Britons. The routes by which JA-R&B moved from the relative shadows of the underground Jamaican-settler social scene into the clubs of Soho, to London’s recording studios, and eventually onto the pop charts through British-made recordings are traced here through analysis of contemporaneous discourse found in The West Indian Gazette, Disc, Melody Maker, New Record Mirror, and New Musical Express. I conclude that JA-R&B’s eventual “novelty” status, coupled with apparent anxieties about the growing West Indian immigrant population in Britain, elided the possibility that JA-R&B could be valued on the same terms and by the same standards as “authentic,” American-originated R&B.

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