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Zouj: Dynamic Jewish-Muslim Interaction in Popular Maghribi Comedic Performance Culture since the 1920s

Project description

An artistic exploration of Arab-Israeli relations

Researchers will explore Jewish-Muslim dynamic interactions in performance art across North Africa (the Maghreb) and France since 1920. The EU-funded DJMI project will study the interactions in popular comedic performance culture, focusing on the word Zouj which means a couple, or two, in both Arabic and Hebrew. The study will trace the dynamics of Jewish-Muslim interactions starting from the satirical sketches of early popular comedic theatrical production in Algeria and Morocco to a recent wave of literature, film and music. The findings will provide a new historical perspective on the current sectarian divisions between Muslims and Jews around the world. The time period encompasses France’s attempts to assimilate Maghrebi Jews and Muslims at different levels under colonial rule, decolonisation that saw mass departures from North Africa and the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia across the Western world.

Objective

DJMI will provide the first systematic study into the dynamics of Muslim-Jewish interactions in popular comedic performance culture from the 1920s in the Maghrib and France, until the present day. The project’s hook is the word Zouj because of its shared meaning in Arabic and Hebrew: a couple, or two. While there is recognition that such ‘Mediterranean culture’ existed, there has been all too little analysis of how it functioned in the past, what its current state is, and what the implications of such change are. In its venture to explore the dynamics of these dialogical interactions through popular culture, DJMI will begin by investigating the satirical sketches of early popular comedic theatrical production in Morocco and Algeria as the crucible for the North African performing arts scene to come. These sketches were sui generis and cross-genre, adapting elements of local halqa—circle-based qu’ranic recitation—commedia del’arte-style street theatre, local musics, and the telling of folk tales and everyday-vignettes in local Arabic in the public square. DJMI traces the dynamics of Jewish-Muslim interactions through the production and texts of these sketches to Maghribi chaâbi (popular) music, and on to stand-up comedy in the present day connecting to a renewal of interest in Muslim-Jewish interactions among new generations across northern Africa in reception to a recent wave of literature, film, and music that seeks to depict or reimagine these interactions and relations. DJMI thus connects the historical to the anthropological proto-nostalgia of this reception to focus on the debates and interconnections that this renewal of interest produces and where this emanates from. These perspectives and their historical basis are of the uttermost importance in light of the perceived increasingly sectarian divisions between Muslims and Jews across the globe, both rhetorically and geographically, including the particularly dramatic situation in Israel-Palestine

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

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Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 261 975,36
Address
TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom

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Region
East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 261 975,36

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