Charles Hirschkind's unique study explores how a popular Islamic media
form--the cassette sermon--has profoundly transformed the political
geography of the Middle East over the last three decades.
An essential aspect of what is now called the Islamic Revival, the
cassette sermon has become omnipresent in most Middle Eastern cities,
punctuating the daily routines of many men and women. Hirschkind shows
how sermon tapes have provided one of the means by which Islamic ethical
traditions have been recalibrated to a modern political and
technological order--to its noise and forms of pleasure and boredom, but
also to its political incitements and call for citizen participation.
Contrary to the belief that Islamic cassette sermons are a tool of
militant indoctrination, Hirschkind argues that sermon tapes serve as an
instrument of ethical self-improvement and as a vehicle for honing the
sensibilities and affects of pious living.
Focusing on Cairo's popular neighborhoods, Hirschkind highlights the
pivotal role these tapes now play in an expanding arena of Islamic
argumentation and debate--what he calls an "Islamic counterpublic." This
emerging arena connects Islamic traditions of ethical discipline to
practices of deliberation about the common good, the duties of Muslims
as national citizens, and the challenges faced by diverse Muslim
communities around the globe. The Ethical Soundscape is a brilliant
analysis linking modern media practices of moral self-fashioning to the
creation of increasingly powerful religious publics.
