The Middle East and Brazil: Perspectives on the New Global South (Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa) - Hardcover

This book is a theoretical and methodological breakthrough. From the contributors’ brilliant analyses of the politics of oil, the movement of people, and political solidarities, to their fresh perspectives on the transregional mass cultures of tourism and Orientalism―all between the Middle East and Brazil―this book provides a new conceptual apparatus for de-centering European colonialism and U.S. imperialism in transnational studies and international relations. While many scholars are writing about transnationalism, no book addresses south-south relations with as much depth and rigor as The Middle East and Brazil. The contributors do not merely compare the Middle East and Brazil, but they bring into focus what is often lost in both area studies and empire studies: new kinds of transregional Global South cultural struggles, migrations, and political realities. (Nadine Suleiman Naber University of Illinois at Chicago)

In this unique and insightful collection, one which ranges from the 1835 Muslim slave rebellion in Bahia to contemporary Brazil’s myriad political and cultural connections with today’s Middle East, Paul Amar has assembled a probing set of essays us that shows us what critical transnational scholarship ought to look like. More important, though, is the political project at its core. At the heart of The Middle East and Brazil we can feel the subversive pulse of dismantling Eurocentrism beating through the pages of this necessary book. (Moustafa Bayoumi Brooklyn College, CUNY)

Fresh and exciting . . . . Provides a uniquely full and balanced view of the processes bridging the regions under study. The transregional approach is innovative and sheds light on both regions. (Camila Pastor de Maria y Campos CIDE, Mexico)

[A] pathbreaking journey toward a new scope and scale for transnational scholarship. This fine volume offers a set of groundbreaking analyses of the transregional social processes, geopolitical linkages, and public cultural flows that animate exchanges between two of the most dynamic and rapidly changing areas of the global south. Students of international politics, migration history, race/sex/coloniality, Latin American Studies, Middle East Studies, American Studies and cultural studies―as well as journalists and public-affairs readers―will be surprised by the degree of intensity and productivity that have woven together Arab and Muslim universes with Brazil for the past two centuries. . . . [L]ays the foundation for a new sub-field of trans-area studies, and creates a new transnational community of conversations and research agendas that will be taught and cited for a generation. (Bassam Haddad George Mason University)

The Middle East and Brazil is a sweeping examination of the long-term links between international relations and the creation of ethnic identities in two hemispheres often presented as having only recent contact. Paul Amar has organized a wonderful volume that examines topics like contemporary policy, historical and current immigration patterns, and literary representations. In doing so, the book dismantles the stereotyped dichotomies that often dominate discussions of these regions. With contributions from scholars of different disciplines and a range of academic communities, The Middle East and Brazil will stimulate wide-ranging debate and will become a reference for future research. (Jeffrey Lesser Emory University)