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The Reawakening of the Belly Dancer and Queer Revolution

image of The Reawakening of the Belly Dancer and Queer Revolution

In this chapter, I analyze how Lebanese queer artists endow visual representations of the figure of the belly dancer with new potent meanings. The artists I discuss here use archive-based video art, radical queer aesthetics and camp sensibilities to produce a revision of the region's history, challenge its strict gender norms, and create feminist visions for the present and future. I argue that the awakening of the dancer and her creative energy and power to captivate audiences echoes a feminist and queer revolution striving to transform a patriarchal social and political order in Lebanon and beyond.

Keywords: Archival art practice ; Archive ; Belly dancer ; Camp ; Performance Studies ; Queer Aesthetics ; Queer Artists ; Queer of Color Critique ; Queer Revolution ; Video Art

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The Reawakening of the Belly Dancer and Queer Revolution
Intellect , 15 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835950265_3
/content/books/9781835950265.c01
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References

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References

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     [Google Scholar]
  2. Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Dickinson, Kay. “Re-Citation and Resuscitation from the Archives of Arab Revolution.” Screen 60.1 (March 2019): 46–69. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjy063.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Downey, Anthony, ed. Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East. London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2015.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. El-Ariss, Tarek. “Beast.” The Derivative. April 1, 2021. https://thederivative.org/beast-%d9%88-%d8%ad-%d8%b4/.
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  7. El Sharkawy, Aya. “Another Camp or The Second Testament on Camp.” Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research 6.3 (December 2020): 256–68. https://kohljournal.press/another-camp. https://doi.org/10.36583/2020060303.
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  8. Enwezor, Okwui. Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art. New York: International Center of Photography and Steidl Publishers, 2008.
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  9. Gopinath, Gayatri. “Queer Visual Excavations: Akram Zaatari, Hashem El Madani, and the Reframing of History in Lebanon.” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 13.2 (July 2017): 326–36. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-3861400.
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     [Google Scholar]
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     [Google Scholar]
  14. Shomali, Mejdulene B. “Dancing Queens.” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 15.2 (July 2019): 135–56. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-7490939.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Toufic, Jalal and Matthew Gumpert. Thinking: The Ruin. Istanbul: Rezan Has Museum, 2010.
     [Google Scholar]

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