I wrote The Politics of Melodrama after realizing that Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s wildly popular romantic serials operated on two levels. At first glance, they were cliff‑hangers that boosted the circulation of Rose El Youssef<..
Jonathan Smolin
Jonathan Smolin is Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College and Director of the Dartmouth Initiative for Middle East Exchange (DIMEX). His work explores the fault‑lines between mass culture and state power in North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of Moroccan Noir (Indiana, 2013), winner of the L. Carl Brown Book Prize, and The Politics of Melodrama (Stanford, 2025). He has translated six Arabic novels into English, including the forthcoming dystopian thriller Exit by Ezzedine C. Fishere.