(Re)constructing the Field of Iraqi Theatre Studies: Histories, Institutions, Circulations
Beirut
Organization: Saint-Joseph University of Beirut
Argument
The available scholarship on Arabic theatre has mostly focused on theatrical practices in Egypt and the Levant, and, more recently, in North Africa, leaving other theatres in the region understudied. The argument that the emergence of Arabic theatre began in East Mediterranean cities, including Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and Alexandria, during the Arabic Enlightenment (Al-Nahda) has informed the field to date. This argument has also shaped the selection of specific empirical cases, determining the current state of scholarship on this theatre or that. More generally, one can mention the following words by Khalid Amine and Marvin Carlson, who contend that:
There is no disputing the central role played by Egypt and Syria in the development of modern Arabic theatre, nor of the continuing dominance of Egypt within the Arab theatre world, but the almost exclusive attention to Egypt among the few English-language studies of Arab theatre constitutes almost as serious a misrepresentation of this subject as the long-practiced total exclusion of Arab theatre from so-called world theatre histories. (2012: 1-2)
Within this general framework, one could note that Iraqi theatre stands out as one of the most neglected subjects not only in scholarship on Arabic theatre but also in Arabic cultural studies. While these studies have consistently overlooked Iraqi cultural production, theatre has been among its most disregarded manifestations, albeit with a few exceptions (al-Mafra??, 1965; al-Zubayd?, 1966; al-??lib, 1971; Sef Abdil Kader, 1995; ?Abd al-?am?d, 2013). Too often, Iraqi theatre makers have been excluded from the academic narrative about the making of Iraqi intellectuals since the inception of Iraqi theatre in the early twentieth century. Most anthologies that archived, translated, or historicised Iraqi cultural production focused solely on poetry, novels, and short stories, ignoring plays and other forms of theatrical activities, which are taken into account in Europe and North America only in two works recently edited by Amir Al-Azraki, James Al-Shamma and Jeff Casey (2017, 2025), and before them by Salih J. Altoma in a book chapter (2010). More significantly, the emergence of theatre, its developmental history as much as its relationship to other forms of cultural productions, such as literature and visual arts, have never been fully assessed in the context of modern and contemporary Iraq.
The limited literature compiled so far on the development history of Iraqi theatre reduces its genesis to church drama, obscuring the emergence of other theatrical forms and types that appeared during the early 20th century, including those in cultural clubs, school theatre, and travelling theatrical troupes. It was, for instance, only ten years ago that Ali Al-Rubai, a scholar in the history of Iraqi theatre at the College of Fine Arts at Babylon University, proposed to consider 1874 the exact year of Iraqi theatre’s genesis (2016). Since the 1950s, scholarship on Iraqi theatre has circulated the false claim that theatre began in Iraq in 1880, most notably through the work of the Dominican priest and poet Hanna Habash, who was particularly active in Mosul during those years. This example shows how the study of Iraqi cultural history remains shaped by a lack of information, or even by misinformation. The lack of primary and secondary sources, along with the difficulties in accessing them, also made conducting research on Iraqi theatre a challenging process, specifically in a country that, until recently, has been labelled a “conflict zone”.
Since the US invasion and occupation (2003), the political instability has reshaped the cultural spectacle in Iraq. This instability has also reshaped the interest shown by researchers in the country. Iraq has been an open laboratory for European and North-American theories and hypotheses in war studies, gender studies, political economy, governance, and more, skewing scholarly attention towards exploring political and social dynamics and leaving behind cultural production, specifically theatre. We believe that this fact also renders Iraqi theatre studies in an ongoing struggle to emerge as a research field in both the Arab countries and Western academia. Thus, one of the main objectives of this special issue is to contribute to (re)constructing such a research field, while also critically examining the categories through which Iraqi theatre is understood (“popular” vs “serious” theatre / “elite” vs “commercial” theatre / “inside” vs “outside” theatre) and the power relations that inform it, including those between practitioners and researchers.
To do that, we set this CFP targeting researchers from different countries, disciplines and trajectories. Also, we aim to draw on different epistemological tools that could help us look at Iraqi theatre from different angles and critical perspectives. This special issue is to attract attention to the diverse approaches to studying Iraqi theatre. Therefore, we invite Arabic theatre scholars, cultural historians, literary translators, theatre practitioners and theatremakers to contribute to it, trying to reflect on these and other topics:
– What are the main methodological challenges in studying Iraqi theatre?
– How is Iraqi theatre examined, classified or categorised today? And why?
– How can we help Iraqi theatre to emerge as an autonomous field of study?
– How is theatre currently produced within Iraq ? What are its conditions of production?
– How did socio-political events, such as the international sanctions, the US invasion and occupation, affect the production and circulation of Iraqi theatre?
– What is the material and intangible infrastructure of Iraqi theatre? How has this infrastructure changed since its institutionalisation?
– What are the stakes and specificities of producing Iraqi theatre in the diaspora?
– How does Iraqi theatre circulate outside Iraq? What does it mean to translate Iraqi plays today? Is there any market for these translations?
– What is the reception of Iraqi theatre and, more generally, Iraq on Arabic or European and North-American stages?
Submission Guidelines
Authors wishing to submit an abstract (in English, French, or Arabic) are invited to send it to the following email addresses by the 17th of July 2026: hadeel.abdelhameed1@monash.edu, antonio.pacifico@univ-lyon3.fr, monica.ruocco@unior.it and regards@usj.edu.lb
Or via the Digital Commons platform: https://e-journals.usj.edu.lb/cgi/login.cgi?return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fe-journals.usj.edu.lb%2Fcgi%2Fsubmit.cgi%3Fcontext%3Dregards&context=regards
Authors should provide the following information:
- An abstract of the article (approx. 500 words)
- 5-10 keywords
- A short, indicative bibliography
- A short biography (approx. 100 words)
The abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors, Hadeel Abdelhameed, Antonio Pacifico, and Monica Ruocco. Authors will receive a response by 31 July 2026. The deadline for article submission (approximately 7,000 words) is 15 November 2026.
Submission deadlines:
Abstract submission: July 17, 2026
Response received: July 31, 2026
Article submission (approximately 7000 pages excluding the bibliography): November 15, 2026
Publication date: March 2027
https://e-journals.usj.edu.lb/regards/
Toufic El-Khoury