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2013, Muslim Political Participation in Europe, edited by Jorgen Nielsen. Edinburgh University Press.
"Stand-up comedy and other creative political interventions of Muslims or individuals of Muslim background have largely been neglected within research on the political participation in this field. Most surveys on political participation concentrate on active and passive elective participation, the measurement of trust in legal and political institutions, adherence to liberal-democratic values, degrees of organization, and protest movements. This article, however, approaches political satire and other subversive strategies that allow subalterns to address injustice, discrimination and structural exclusion from the political field as a form of political activism. In an atmosphere of suspicion and verbal taboos, political satire can play a significant role by addressing and criticizing attempts for domestication and securitization. With “Allah made me funny”, “Little mosque in the prairie” and “Moslem TÜV” Muslim comedy and satire entered mainstream entertainment in Northern America but also in some Western European countries, especially after the Danish Muhammad cartoon crisis. With Fatih Çevikkollu this chapter focuses on a specific Muslim comedian but also opens its view to other performers of Muslim background and their position in the German comedy scene. Thereby it is first of all interested in comedians who perform at a professional level and present themselves as Muslims or as individuals with a Turkish or Muslim background while taking a stance on Islam and Integration debates in their performances. It departs from the notion that Muslims’ contributions to politically grounded satire, the field of humor, of absurdity, ridiculing, and subversion are worth examining in terms of their contents as well as of their political strategies to address the unspeakable."
Muslim American stand-up comedy is a unique response to post-9/11 negative social discrimination where socially critical comedians debate the stereotypes and realities of Muslim American life. Thus they continue an American minority tradition of engaging with American social life through public humor. The analysis draws from functionalist theories of the sociology of humor in order to discern the intended social messages of jokes that are meant to entertain and also educate. It shows how Muslim American comedy intends to influence opinions held not only about Muslims but also amongst Muslims. The paper suggests how competing forces related to being Muslim and American undercut the critical public humor of comedians who use these performances to argue what American Muslims should be saying and doing in order to advance their cause for social justice.
2020 •
Turkish German comedy culture and the lived realities of Turkish Muslims in Germany Comedy entertainment is a powerful arena for serious public engagement with questions of German national identity and Turkish German migration. The German majority society and its largest labour migrant community have been asking for decades what it means to be German and what it means for Turkish Germans, Muslims of the second and third generations, to call Germany their home. Benjamin Nickl examines through the social pragmatics of humour the dynamics that underpin these questions in the still-evolving popular culture space of German mainstream humour in the 21st century. The first book-length study on the topic to combine close readings of film, television, literary and online comedy, and transnational culture studies, Turkish German Muslims and Comedy Entertainment presents the argument that Turkish German humour has moved from margin to mainstream by intervening in cultural incompatibility and Islamophobia discourse. Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
2023 •
2013 •
Over the last few years, humour has provided many Muslims with a means of seeking to establish a positive sense of self-identity, as well as a means of challenging misconceptions and fears of Islam in a wide variety of countries on both sides of the Atlantic. This article brings together two interviews with performers who use comedy to engage with perceptions of Islam and (re-)present Muslims in a generally non-threatening and everyday context. It compares and contrasts atrio of American stand-up comedians who tour under the name ‘Allah Made Me Funny’ and the two French performers who created ‘À part ça tout va bien’/‘Apart from that everything’s fine’, a humorous web series in France. The interviews provide an insight into processes of identity negotiation and (re)presentation by performers based in countries with very differing approaches to multiculturalism and diversity.
This paper explores the role that Muslim standup comedians are playing in breaking down cultural barriers, promoting inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue, as well as tackling the misperceptions about Muslim and Arab Americans in the United States. I argue that Muslim comedians are increasingly taking on the role of Gramscian “organic intellectuals” capable of successfully participating in a quintessentially American activity—standup comedy—on behalf of their respective communities. Some scholars of Islam may argue that Muslim comedians, if they have any significance at all, are confined to the periphery of any meaningful discussions regarding Islam and Muslims after September 11. I will show that this is not only false, but fails to fully grasp the multifaceted responses that have arisen to combat Islamophobia and Arabophobia in the United States since the events of September 11, 2001.
2015 •
Islam arguably produced some of the greatest humour in world literature. What would we do without the 8th+ century 1001 Nights, 13th century Nasreddin? So how do Muslim humorists adapt to modern secularism? There has been an explosion of Arab and south Asian stand-up comics in the past two decades, coinciding with 9/11.
This research and writing is presented as a “pre-curriculum,” containing theoretical frameworks within which antiracist educators may apply their talents and sensitivities towards opening dialogue and critical exploration of the functioning of Islamophobia. Resistance to sustained examination of dominant Islamophobic stereotypes in this time of ongoing military aggression towards Muslim populations internationally and racial and religious discrimination domestically, poses exceptional challenges. Entrenched media representations, and political discourse on both right and left tend towards demonization at worst or flattening and invisibilization at best. Oftentimes dedicated, sophisticated facilitators who are immersed in anti-oppression curriculum and anti-racism work in particular, share that they “hit a wall” when it comes to Islamophobia, or express a distancing lack of knowledge. This paper poses the inquiry: How can political humor and social justice comedy effectively open up greater curiosity, deeper engagement, and interrogation of Islamophobic and anti-Arab narratives, and illuminate the deployment of stereotypes with a critical media literacy lens? Strategic incorporation of comedic “texts” offers a form of epistemological inquiry that can surface and problematize what is “known.” As diverse comic artists employ humor as educational bridge-building outreach, antiracist educators can in turn draw from this prolific material as pedagogical tools.
2015 •
Wherever there is migration, cultural diversity will inevitably cause social friction and create tensions. At the same time, it will also enrich the host nation and produce unprecedented hybrid generations. Artists of such a bi-cultural background constitute key figures in abating said tensions. Advancing cultural integration instead of assimilation, they exploit their position of cultural ambivalence to present counter-narratives to official truths and so renegotiate majority/minority relationships in their country of residence. To take some of the sting out of these actions and simultaneously reach the broadest possible public, some of these hybrid artists avail themselves of the ancient doctrine of prodesse et delectare, cloaking their critical social commentary in comedy. Because they focus on clichés of their ancestral as well as native countries, their ethnic humor is mostly self-deprecating and creates a fool’s license to speak with characteristic candor on sensitive topics. The artist of a hybrid background thus occupies a social position similar to the medieval jester and likewise takes advantage of it to subvert existent power structures. The respective comedy routines focus on intercultural variety, perceptions of difference, and the deconstruction of stereotypes. These performances by hybrid artists constitute the distinct genre of ethno-comedy. My overall goal is to demonstrate qualities of humor that exceed mere amusement. Using two very different but complementary Turkish-German artists as representative examples, I build on Freud and Relief Theory to elucidate how ethno-comedic humor can work like a weapon in fighting prejudice and racism. Referencing Bakhtin, I show the way it continues and updates the medieval fool’s tradition. Finally, against the backdrop of Bhabha’s postcolonial studies as well as Adorno and Horkheimer’s “Culture Industry” I challenge the assumption that aesthetics are inherently separate from politics and outline the genre’s cultural political potential.
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