Dancing at the Thresholds

Name: Dancing at the Thresholds
Brand: INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Price: 189.75 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

Music, Trance, and Feeling in Algerian Diwan of Sidi Bilal

By: Tamara Dee Turner

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Hardcover | 12 May 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
344 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.9 x 15.2

Hardcover

RRP $254.00

$189.75

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Available: 12th May 2026

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Dancing at the Thresholds tells the story of communities in Algeria that practice diwan: a nocturnal musical ritual in which practitioners enter various modes of trance to achieve affective "ignition" and emotional release through the body. Seen by other locals as a form of "popular" or "folk" Islam, Algerian diwan exists as a racially identifiable and minority practice embodying centuries of historical trauma rooted in the trans-Saharan slave trade by entwining sub-Saharan pantheons and knowledge with North African religious philosophies and structures. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork alongside archival sources, oral histories, and ritual analysis, author Tamara Dee Turner considers diwan through an affective, embodied lens to challenge mainstream assumptions of affect theory as well as Western approaches to healing and mental health. Instead of separating emotional influences from cultural environments or conscious thoughts, diwan practitioners carefully cultivate a specific atmosphere, or hal, that allows them to reach the trance-like state where music and bodily movements can navigate the gaps between tradition and modernity, the human and nonhuman, and the sacred and the secular. A much-needed ethnographic approach to the living family lineages, practices, and intimate epistemologies of diwan, Dancing at the Thresholds is a story about the nature of healing and how wellness depends on the respect of wider, affective ecologies beyond both the individual and the human.

Industry Reviews

"I cannot overemphasize how vital a scholarly contribution this is. We are fortunate indeed that Turner was able and willing to do this research, which unfolded over 10 years - giving the work a temporal depth that is rare these days. Given her own positionality as a musician capable not only of interviewing diwan experts but also of playing with them, she is the only one able to give us this kind of deeply researched, 'experience-near' personal account. No one else will be able to do this." - Jane Goodman, author of Staging Cultural Encounters: Algerian Actors Tour the United States "This book outlines a wealth of scholarship on under-recognized communities across Algeria with attention to the nuances of geography, purpose, generation, belief, and economy. By bringing these together with attention to a frame of ecology, Turner writes a compelling story that challenges notions of how these pieces of personal and ritual experience interrelate." - Christopher Witulski, author of The Gnawa Lions: Authenticity and Opportunity in Moroccan Ritual Music

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