"Islam on TV in the Arab World" with Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen

AVACGIS Spring 2015 Lecture Series

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 1:30 PM to 2:45 PM EDT
Johnson Center, Meeting Room G, 3rd Floor

Television is still by far the most influential media in the Arab World, and since the 1990s satellite technology has enabled broadcasters to reach Arab audiences at a transnational and even transregional level, Islam has emerged as a central topic in a highly competitive pan-Arab television market with more than 700 channels. This talk will present key channels, personalities and genres, paying special attention to the musalsalat, the serials screened during the month of Ramadan.

Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Copenhagen, and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. He is the author of Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta, and Islam on Arab TV (in Danish), among other titles. He is also the co-editor (with Bettina Graf) of The Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, and (with Naomi Sakr and Donatella Della Ratta) of Arab Media Moguls, forthcoming in 2015.