The following is an excerpt from the anthology Ten Arab Filmmakers edited by Josef Gugler and published by Indiana University Press (2015). Mohamed Chouikh occupies a key position as a kind of relay between the post-colonial, idealized Algeria of the 1960s and what one might call the contested, dysfunctional Algeria …

Ronnie Close, an academic and assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, welcomes the volume into the discourse on visual content. He contextualizes the scholarly work by providing information on related fields, and he assesses the compilation's overall cohesion.

In his most recent book, Mohannad Sabry examines a region that remains a mystery to people around the world. His thorough research and extensive field experience yield profound insight into the complex claims in the territory that have influenced Sinai's history and its present.

In her recent book, Seba Bebawi assesses the veracity of Al Jazeera English's self-proclaimed role as a radical "counter-balance" to mainstream global media. She demonstrates a nuanced understanding of modern media through direct narrative comparisons of the same events covered by Al Jazeera English and by other media outlets.

In Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography, Ariella Azoulay interrogates issues of visual culture, in particular photography, the role of spectator-critics, body politics, and citizenship, through the lens of the Palestinian struggle. She argues that the boundaries of the aesthetic, the political, and the civil perpetuate power relations of nation-states and exclusions. Kiranjeet Kaur Dhillon reviews.

Naomi Sakr’s survey of the state of post-revolution Egyptian journalism shows how, in spite of notable advances, it is still beholden to Mubarak-era strictures and practices. Mohammed el-Nawawy calls the book timely and valuable as a snapshot of a transformed but still evolving situation.

Ramy Aly reviews and critiques this volume of articles edited by Tariq Sabry, calling it the most coherent attempt yet to “create a reflexive disciplinary self-consciousness” for the nascent field of Arab cultural studies. The book’s strength, he writes, lies in its “unapologetic diagnosis of the weaknesses” of current Arab media, communication and literary studies and its proposals for a way out of this disciplinary impasse.

Mark LeVine calls this volume, edited by Karin van Nieuwkerk, a tour de force of cultural analysis of the blossoming production of religiously oriented art, music, and theater in the Muslim world. The book, he writes, will "further the interdisciplinary development of Islamic studies, cultural studies, ethnomusicology and even, it is hoped, the usually drier disciplines such as political science or sociology, both of which could certainly use a bit more rhythm and color in their methodological repertoires in the wake of the region-wide protests and revolutions in which culture has played a powerful and as yet poorly understood role."

Shereen El Feki reviews Arab Television Industries by Marwan Kraidy and Joe F. Khalil, and Reality Television and Arab Politics: contention in public life, also by Marwan M. Kraidy

Aaron Wenner reviews (Un)Civil War of Words: Media and Politics in the Arab World by Mamoun Fandy, concluding that it is an interesting and timely argument for a more nuanced understanding of the political and social role of Arab media, but would be much stronger if it had more specific case studies, a clearer conception of its terms, and a more precise focus.