Follow Us
From the Editors
Jadaliyya Revamps Arabic Section . . . click here
Jadaliyya Launches Arabian Peninsula Page . . . Click here!
الآن . . . القسم العربي بحلة جديدة
The Culture Page Returns . . . . click here
Jadaliyya launches its new Syria page . . . Click here.
Want to find out about new books? Visit our expanding NEWTON page. Click here.
Call for Photos: Become a Contributing Photographer at Jadaliyya
Internship Opportunities at ASI (Jadaliyya, Arab Studies Journal, FAMA). Click here!
The Jadaliyya Egypt Elections Watch page archives! Click here for comprehensive coverage.
Interested in writing a Review for Jadaliyya? Visit our Call for Reviews here.
Elliott Colla
The Levant [Gone to Palestine: 10]
![[Image from author]](/content_images/3/sm_Levant-3.jpg "[Image from author]")
On the way back from Kafr Qasim, we turned off the highway in Ran’ana where, we were told we’d find the best Moroccan food in the country. We went into the first gas station we saw when we came into the town, and the Iraqi attendant there told us where our restaurant was. It’d been weeks since we’d had anything but local food, and as delicious as that could be, we were getting sick of the humous and tomatoes and thyme and parsley and eggplant and rice and flat bread. What we ...
Keep Reading »The Keys to Birweh [Gone to Palestine: 9]
We went to visit Shatila camp where our friend Lula was teaching English. We knew the camp was important. We knew that it was a center of the struggle for many reasons. We knew that this was the place where hundreds of women, children and men were massacred over a few days in September 1982. We knew who the murderers were. We knew who trained them. We knew who supplied the weapons. We knew who promised to provide security for the camp when the PLO evacuated. We knew that the ...
Keep Reading »Walls [Gone to Palestine: 8]
![[‘Allar Village Wall. Image from Palestineremembered.com]](/content_images/3/sm_AllarVillage.jpg "[‘Allar Village Wall. Image from Palestineremembered.com]")
We went to visit our friend who was participating in the summer program for foreigners at Aida camp in Bethlehem. We were surprised that it took only ten minutes from the center of Jerusalem to get to the checkpoint at Rachel’s Tomb. There we started to take pictures. We walked through the spotless new terminal and thought of our tax dollars. On the Bethlehem side, we took pictures of a huge sign that the Israeli Board of Tourism had put up on the wall. It said “Go in ...
Keep Reading »Cannes ya ma Cannes Ramallah [Gone to Palestine: 7]
We’d been invited to the Franco-German cultural center to see a film by a leftist Israeli filmmaker. The advance notice had said that “this was perhaps the most important film on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ever made.” It was endorsed by a couple well-known intellectuals from abroad, and all its screenings at the Jerusalem Film Festival were sold out well in advance. I’d never seen his first film, which apparently was a autobiographical work that was “sort of ...
Keep Reading »Our Solidarity [Gone to Palestine: 6]
![[Qalqilya: Wall in Stenciler's Shop, image from author]](/content_images/3/sm_Qalqilya-StencilersShop-2005.jpg "[Qalqilya: Wall in Stenciler's Shop, image from author]")
A group of us activists went to Qalqilya, a town so far west that it sits not in the dry hills, but on the humid coastal plane. Though the uprising had been effectively suppressed, we felt that our trip, in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, was important. After all, the violence and dispossession of the occupation had not ceased even though the resistance had been decimated. Our solidarity group was warmly received by local activists who were quite used to ...
Keep Reading »Kareem Abdulsalam: Teargas Poems
![[Kareem Abdulsalam, Image from poet]](/content_images/3/sm_كريم.jpg "[Kareem Abdulsalam, Image from poet]")
[With the smoke of the Egyptian uprising still hanging in the air, Kareem Abdulsalam recently published his ninth diwan, Teargas Cannisters (Qanabil musila li-l-dumu', Cairo: Dar al-Kitaba al-Ukhra, March 2011). Abdulsalam's poetry captures the elation of a revolution half started and the dread of waking too suddenly from a dream.] 1. Where have they Hidden Themselves? Those who fired rubber bullets at eyes Those snipers who aimed 12 mm. ...
Keep Reading »Entrevista al novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim sobre la revolucion; la imaginacion como acto transitivo
![[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]](/content_images/3/sm_sonallah.jpg "[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]")
[This interview was conducted in Arabic by Elliott Cola and translated/published in Spanish by www.rebelion.org] Entrevista al novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim sobre la revolución: La imaginación como acto transitivo [Traducción para Rebelión de Loles Oliván] El mes pasado el novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim se sentó con Jadaliyya para hablar de revolución, literatura e imaginación. Como siempre, el autor fue generoso: abordó su amplia visión sobre ...
Keep Reading »NPR: Israeli Chef Invents Baba Ghannouj
In news that stunned millions of listeners, NPR confirmed that the dish once known as "Baba ghannouj" (or "Spoiled Papa") is actually the recent creation of the inventive Israeli chef Yoram Ottolenghi who, in his new book, prefers to call it "Burnt Eggplant with Tahini." In an exclusive interview with NPR's Senior Levantine Food Correspondent Susan Stamberg, Ottolenghi also admitted to using pomegranate and even cilantro in his unique culinary ...
Keep Reading »The Imagination as Transitive Act: an Interview with Sonallah Ibrahim
![[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]](/content_images/3/sm_IMG_0774_2.jpg "[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]")
Last month, the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim sat down with Jadaliyya to talk about revolution, literature and the imagination. As always, the author was generous -- presenting a broad view of literature politics, and life. (Recorded in Cairo, May 14, 2011; the Arabic text can be found here. A Spanish translation can be found here.) Elliott Colla: Was what happened in January and February a revolution? Sonallah Ibrahim: It certainly was not a revolution. A revolution ...
Keep Reading »The Persistence of Jokes
![[Ismail Pasha, Image from www.royal-photos.blogspot.com]](/content_images/3/sm_474px-Ismail_Pasha.jpg "[Ismail Pasha, Image from www.royal-photos.blogspot.com]")
My friends laughed and called me a “revolution tourist” — which wasn’t incorrect, since part of my reason for coming was to see what was happening up close. But the other reason, of course, was to visit the state archives to check on the status of my application. Last fall, I wrote up a vague proposal for research I intended to undertake on the inefficiencies of cotton pricing in the nineteenth-century. I submitted the proposal in triplicate: one to the head of the Ministry ...
Keep Reading »Bio
Elliott Colla is author of Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity (Duke University Press, 2007), and translator of works of Arabic literature, including Ibrahim Aslan's The Heron, Idris Ali's Poor, and Al-Koni's Gold Dust. He is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University.
©2010-2012 by the Arab Studies Institute. All Rights Reserved. info@jadaliyya.com
site by concepcion design