The Palgrave Handbook of Arab Film and Media is a new anthology on Arab film and media that welcomes submissions of abstracts for previously unpublished chapter contributions. This anthology is a reference book that brings together into one text, a rigorous and expansive study of the developments and turns of roughly a century of cinema histories of this region including the circulation of other media objects (radio, television musalsalat and other programs, music and internet). It spans a wide and diverse geographic and cultural range across Asia and Africa that includes immigrant, migrant and diasporic cultures, and bridges the 20th and 21st centuries. The following three related lines of enquiry are crucial to these explorations: • Historiographies of the development of Arab cinema/media within the Middle East that stretch from the early 20th century colonial era to the present. • Intersections between Arab cinemas with the cinematic/media histories and movements of the Global South, acknowledging the historic and continuous relevance of transregional, South-South connections in cinematic, televisual, and new (streaming) spheres of media production, which shape the production and discourse of media forms and cultural imaginaries. • Changes offered by increasing availability and usage of streaming and non-territorial media platforms that expand audiences, cross spatial borders, and transform identities as they have been defined by previous geo-mapping projects of the 19th and 20th centuries. But we cannot discuss the development of these cinema and media histories without addressing the histories of colonialism, settler colonialism, nationalism, Zionism, authoritarianism, civil wars, proxy wars, intifadas and revolutions, petro-extractive modernity, refugee waves, immigrant labor, and neoliberal economic policies driving globalization from the mid-20th century to the present. For this reason, the handbook follows a loosely chronological structure in which specific iconic events are identified as very determining. Within this chronology, there are many inter-regional and transregional connections that scholars are still beginning to uncover. For example, the 1950s was a golden age not only for Egyptian cinema, but for Turkey and Iran as well. How did and how do their film and media productions intersect with those of the Arab world? Is there a reciprocal engagement beyond Turkish products circulating for Arab and MENA audiences? From the 1950s Bollywood films have circulated through distribution channels in the Arab countries making Hindi melodramas part of the cinematic vernacular of anyone with access to cinemas and television screens. Indian Iranian circulations of cinema date back to co-productions in the 1930s, reflecting a long history of cultural and trade relations between the two countries. How did these circulations travel through the Arab media channels? There is still much to discover about further crossovers. One example is Shirin Neshat’s 2017 exilic film Looking for Oum Kulthoum: although shot in Morocco, with an Iranian exilic cast, and although Iran and Egypt have had an off/on relationship, Neshat’s film brings into question the permeability of borders and cultural intersections that invite scholarly attention. Another example of understudied historiography is that of Sudanese cinema, prompted by the 2019 arrival of three feature films by Sudanese filmmakers after a long dearth of cinematic productions since the early 1970s (Khalid Siddiq’s 1972 The Wedding of Zein, although Siddiq was Kuwaiti). Further potential connections to pursue run between the cinema histories of the Arab countries and those of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. These are but a few examples of inter-regional and transregional film histories that could be explored. I: Genres, stars, ecosystems of national cinemas/media from colonialism to independence Section I is a foundational curation of contributions that explore topics related to genres, stars, ecosystems of national cinemas/media from colonialism to independence in the Arab countries of the MENA. While these topics have garnered the most scholarly attention to date in edited anthologies and monographs (Armes, Malkmus, Shafik, Armbrust, Gugler, Ginsberg/Lippard, among others), it is important to establish these content areas developed in the following sections of this anthology, for the readers’ understanding of Arab cinema/media within the MENA region. II. Modernism’s long period: auteurs, state cinema, liberation cinema, film art Section II is also a foundational section which allows for new historiographies and theoretical explorations about auteurs, national cinema, liberation cinema and film art and/or experimental film. Notable recent monographs about modernity, auteurs, state cinema, and liberation cinema that inspire this section are Khoury’s The Arab National Project in Youssef Chahine’s Cinema, 2010; Alkassim and Andary’s The Cinema of Muhammad Malas: Visions of a Syrian Auteur, 2018; Yaqub’s Palestinian Cinema and the Days of Revolution, 2019; and Limbrick’s Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi, 2020, among others. Additional topics that may be explored, although not exclusively in this section, are historiographies of women and gendered “others” as cultural producers, directors, screenwriters, editors and actors, in addition to subjects. III. Transregional historiographies: Arab cinema in the MENA and Global South, the Global South in the Arab MENA Section III is inspired by recent special issue film journals such as Film History vol. 32, issue 3 and Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication: Film and Visual Media in the Gulf, vol. 14, issue 1-2 that respectively center historiography of cinema’s South-South relations within the broader SWANA (South-West Asia and North Africa) region, and film studies of Arab Gulf cinema in relation to the broader MENA region. The following are a few of the potential topics, framed as questions, this section will explore: • What are the intersections of film production, distribution and circulation between the MENA and the different areas (central and marginal) designated as the Global South? • What cultural imaginaries have been shaped by and through material circulations of transregional media within these areas? • What continuities are forged across these histories? • How has the moving image refigured the past and constituted the present within these relations? • How have political upheavals marked the timelines of intersecting cinemas and media modalities of the Global South? • How has Bollywood penetrated commercial, cultural, and domestic spaces in the MENA countries? • What about migrant film productions in the Arabian Gulf? (see Bindu Menon’s essay about migrant images and lateral agency) • Where has Sudanese cinema screened? • What histories have been archived and/or can be mined about Arab/(sub-Saharan) African cinematic and/or televisual relations? • What about the generative relations between Latin American filmmakers and revolutionary filmmakers in the Arab world, Third World Cinema in the MENA countries, and MENA cinema within Third Cinema discourse? • What about Iranian-Arab relations through cinema? • What about intersections between Pakistani, Bengali, and Arab cinemas? IV. Intersections and crossovers between the cinematic and televisual: hybrid forms and genres, media ecosystems, films and serials, star power, the audience Section IV commands new scholarship and is a fertile area for research for many reasons, not least of which is the increasingly common elision of borders between cinematic and televisual media, as evidenced in the productions of media giants Netflix and Amazon, and also the recently formed GCC financed streaming platform Shahid, which produces both streaming series and films. What implications does this have for filmmakers, cinema spheres, film festivals, and the increasing number of people who study filmmaking but end up working in television and other media production spheres in the region? How does this impact audiences, modes of film/television viewing? What genres dominate and what new genres emerge? How might this intersect with growing awareness of the environmental damage contributed by online media? V. From the first Gulf War to the aftermath of revolutions: Arab film and media of the MENA in the “new” imperial age Section IV also commands new scholarship about films/media that may be clearly oppositional in message/form or simply narrating/reflective of the aftermath of wars and political and economic unrest in the region. Here we may circle back to questions explored in previous sections - of genre; auteurs; media platforms; state-sponsored, foreign-funded, and independent productions; film and video art – but seek a better understanding of why the past lives in the present and the present cannot be separated from the past in the film and media production and their ecosystems of this region, and beyond. If you are interested in contributing to this project, please submit a (maximum) 300-word abstract outlining your proposed intervention for new scholarship (previously unpublished) and specifying which section you envision your contribution fitting into, accompanied by a (maximum) 150-word biography that details affiliations, publications, current research interests, and any relevant professional or curatorial experience. Regarding chapters: Chapter submissions must be 7000 words in length and conform to the Chicago Manual style of endnotes and bibliography. Authors will provide their own index of terms. Timeline: Deadline for submissions of abstracts and biographies: January 31, 2023. Correspondence will follow in February and March from the editor. Estimated deadline for delivery of completed chapters: January 2024. Please direct all enquiries, correspondence, and submissions to editor Samirah Alkassim at salkassi@gmu.edu.