Dynamic Maghribi Jewish-Muslim Interactions in Material and Performative Cultures Since 1920

Description

This is the second part of the conference series 'Dynamic Maghribi Jewish-Muslim Interaction across the Performing Arts'. The first conference to place from 5 – 7 December 2018 in King's College, Cambridge.

 

Convenors

Sami Everett (University of Cambridge)

Rebekah Vince (University of Warwick)

 

Summary

This event will strengthen a recently established research network exploring Maghribi Jewish-Muslim interactions through performative artwork across North Africa and France from 1920 to the present day. We will bring together a Euro-Mediterranean and transatlantic group of artists, performers, and scholars working across a wide range of genres, including music, theatre, film, street art, and stand-up comedy, to discuss cultural encounters, influences, and cooperation. Building on the success of our conference concerning the Dynamics of Maghribi Jewish-Muslim Interactions across the Performing Arts at the University of Cambridge in December 2018 the purpose of this event held at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, is to interrogate artistic and cultural outputs influenced by or resulting from Jewish-Muslim interactions in North Africa from 1920 to the present day; and to work out how to integrate these performative artworks into a mobile, screen-based exhibition utilizing the online archive of cultural artefacts and recordings established for our first conference. The event is, therefore, both academic and creative, resulting in an innovative exhibition.

The time period encompasses France’s attempts to emancipate and assimilate Maghribi Jews and Muslims at different levels under colonial rule; decolonization which saw mass departures from North Africa, the Arab-Israeli conflict; and rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia across the Western world. This event will provide the framework for artists and scholars to examine counter-narratives through the multiple ways production and performance illustrate dynamic Jewish-Muslim interactions across this time period and to discern the benefits and drawbacks of emphasizing universalism or particularity.

Our aim is to interrogate the following threads, which are fundamental to the establishment of the network, the pedagogical resource, and the exhibition. These are:

• The role of humour in depicting Muslim-Jewish interactions and satire as catharsis
• Absence/presence of Jews in the Maghrib as manifested in performance art
• The specifics of influence and aesthetics in performance relating to Jewish-Muslim interactions
• Memory and amnesia of Jewish life in the Maghrib as depicted in (or left out of) performative artwork
• Challenging stereotypes and assumptions through performative collaboration
• The impact on performance of multilingualism, for example, localized variants of Arabic in Maghrib/Mashriq and Judeo-Arabic; questions of accent such as French and Hebrew; and the issue of translation

Finally, we will discuss in-depth the design of an exhibition based on the cultural artefacts and the video recordings of participants offering expert analysis collated at the previous conference, taking into consideration narrative, interpretative material, funding, and public engagement. Participants will gain a greater understanding of dynamic Jewish-Muslim interactions through art in practice alongside historical analysis, which they can then implement in their own creative output and research-informed pedagogy. The network will be encouraged to think through further possibilities for cooperation beyond the edited volume (forthcoming, Liverpool University Press) and exhibition.

 

Sponsors