The Art of Minorities

Explores the representation of minority cultures in museums of the Middle East and North Africa

• Sets out a new way of understanding cultural representations in non-Western museums
• Encourages a multidisciplinary/non-Western-centric reading of Middle Eastern museums
• Includes 13 case studies based on fieldwork and archival research in the Middle East
• Covers Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria and the UAE

How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region – examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region’s diversity and sketches a ‘museology of disaster’ in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility.

Contributors

Aomar Boum, Los Angeles, USA.

Rhéa Dagher, University of Balamand, Lebanon.

Lucía Cirianni Salazar, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Francesca de Micheli, Lorraine University, France (affiliate).

Zoe Holma, historian and journalist.

Rita Kalindjian, University of Balamand, Lebanon.

Habib Kazdaghli, La Manouba University, Tunisia.

Virginie Rey, University of California, Irvine, USA.

Katarzyna Pieprzak, Williams College, MA, USA.

Virginie Rey, University of California, Irvine, USA.

Amanda Rogers, Colgate University, NY, USA.

Sarina Wakefield, University of Leicester, UK.