Creative Resistance

During the uprisings of the Arab Spring between 2010 and 2012, oppositional movements used political humor to criticize political leaders or to expose the absurdities of the socio-political conditions. These humorous expressions in various art forms such as poetry, stand-up comedy, street art, music, caricatures, cartoons, comics and puppet shows were further distributed in the social media.
This first comprehensive study of political humor in the uprisings explores the varieties and functions of political humor as a creative tool for resistance. It analyzes humorous forms of cultural expression and their impact on socio-political developments in different countries of the Middle East and North Africa with a special focus on the changing modes of humor.

Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf is part of the interdisciplinary research group 'Migration and Labour' at the Global South Studies Center (University of Cologne, Germany).
Stephan Milich teaches modern Arabic culture and Islamic studies at the University of Cologne. His research interests include contemporary Arabic poetry and prose, culture and ideology as well as representations and concepts of exile and trauma in Arabic literature. He has published widely on modern Arab poetry and translated a number of literary works by contemporary Arab authors such as Mahmoud Darwish, Mohammed Bennis, Rosa Yassin Hassan into German. He currently works on representations of trauma in contemporary Arabic prose with a special interest in `trauma politics' as well as on German orientalism and `orient politics' in WWI.