Follow Us
From the Editors
Jadaliyya Launches DARS Page: Daily Acts of Resistance and Subversion
Tadween Publishing Blog is here! Check it out
Jadaliyya's first book is now available! Click here.
Want to find out about new books? Visit our expanding NEWTON page. Click here.
Interested in writing a Review for Jadaliyya? Visit our Call for Reviews here.
الآن . . . القسم العربي بحلة جديدة
Jadaliyya Launches Photography Page (click here!)
Call for Photos: Become a Contributing Photographer at Jadaliyya
Pedagogy
Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Knowledge In the Time of Oil
[This is one of seven contributions in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the symbolic and material practices of knowledge production on the Arabian Peninsula. Moderated by Rosie Bsheer and John Warner, it features Toby Jones, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Adam Hanieh, Neha Vora, Nathalie Peutz, John Willis, and Ahmed Kanna.] (1) Historically, what have the dominant analytical approaches to the study of the Arabian Peninsula been? How have the difficulties of carrying out research in the Arabian Peninsula shaped the ways in which knowledge is produced for the particular country/ies in which you have worked, and in the field more generally? Before the oil boom of the ...
Keep Reading »Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Perspectives from the Margins of Arabia
[This is one of seven contributions in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the symbolic and material practices of knowledge production on the Arabian Peninsula. Moderated by Rosie Bsheer and John Warner, it features Toby Jones, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Adam Hanieh, Neha Vora, Nathalie Peutz, John Willis, and Ahmed Kanna.] (1) Historically, what have the dominant analytical approaches to the study of the Arabian Peninsula been? How have the difficulties of carrying out research in the Arabian Peninsula shaped the ways in which knowledge is produced for the particular country/ies in which you have worked, and in the field more generally? When I first began studying Arabic ...
Keep Reading »From High to Low and Back Again: A Fish Above Sea Level
Samak fawqa satah al-bahr [A Fish above Sea Level]. Directed by Hazim Bitar. Jordan, 2012. Recently I had the opportunity to view the independent film Samak fawqa satah al-bahr (A Fish above Sea Level) at the University of Jordan. This is the first feature-length film by Hazim Bitar, who both wrote and directed it. He is a prominent presence in the Jordanian film community, having produced more than six shorts, both narrative-driven and documentary, in addition to founding the (now suspended) Amman Filmmakers Cooperative, which provided an array of support (including equipment, distribution, promotion, and people-power) to both aspiring and accomplished filmmakers. In ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Esam Al-Amin, The Arab Awakening Unveiled
Esam Al-Amin, The Arab Awakening Unveiled: Understanding Transformations and Revolutions in the Middle East. Washington, DC: American Educational Trust, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book, and how would you describe it? Esam Al-Amin (EA): The Arab Awakening Unveiled: Understanding Transformations and Revolutions in the Middle East is a collection of essays about the Arab uprisings and awakening movement, arguably the most important phenomenon that has taken place in the Middle East in the past century. I hope that the book provides thoughtful analysis and a keen understanding of this historical moment, as well as important aspects of US policy ...
Keep Reading »NEWTON in Focus: Thinking Through Gender and Sex
![[NEWTON logo]](/content_images/3/sm_NEWTONLOGO.jpg "[NEWTON logo]")
This week we highlight various NEWTON texts relevant to the study of gender and sexuality. The authors of these texts write from a wide range of perspectives, approaching questions relevant to the MENA region from a variety of cultural and political contexts and (inter)disciplinary approaches. We encourage you to integrate these texts into your curricula in the coming semesters. If you wish to recommend a book or peer-reviewed article for a feature in NEWTON—on any topic relevant to the region—please email us at reviews@jadaliyya.com. To stay up to date with ongoing discussions by scholars and instructors in the field, be sure to sign up for Jadaliyya’s ...
Keep Reading »Melancholia and the Possibility of a Geopolitics of Mourning
Nouri Gana, Signifying Loss: Toward a Poetics of Narrative Mourning. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2011. In the preface to his recent book, Signifying Loss, Nouri Gana argues that “[i]n a world marked by the swift and sanitized infliction of loss and suffering, especially as a result of the insidious banalization of global warfare and everyday violence,” “signifying loss is crucial to adjusting to a persistently mutating and alienating reality and, simultaneously, to carrying out sociopolitical changes.” Indeed, the opening claim implicitly yet clearly announces that the following pages will demonstrate how contemporary understandings of loss and suffering ...
Keep Reading »Reading Poetry in Tehran: The Case of the Forbidden
Sholeh Wolpé, The Forbidden: Poetry from Iran and Its Exiles. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2012. La redonda, suprema y celestial sandía Es la fruta del árbol de la sed Es la ballena verde del verano At a Chilean food market in Santiago, a young fruit vendor hums verses in praise of watermelons: “Watermelon: round, supreme and celestial / it’s the fruit of the tree of thirst / it’s the green whale of summer.” The poem’s eloquent simplicity and creative metaphors pique the curiosity of a passerby who decides to eavesdrop in the corner. The boy does not remotely appear “moonstruck” or “bookish,” and having been impressed by his talent, the ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Vijay Prashad, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
Vijay Prashad, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, with a preface from Boutros Boutros Ghali. London and New York: Verso and New Delhi: LeftWord, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Vijay Prashad (VP): When I finished The Darker Nations, I felt that the last section was not adequate. That book, published in 2007, told the story of the Third World Project from 1927-8 (the League Against Imperialism meeting in Brussels) to 1983 (the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Delhi). It gave an account of the complex and hopeful elements of the Project—the fight to create space for political sovereignty, economic development, and social ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Amr Adly, State Reform and Development in the Middle East: Turkey and Egypt in the Post-Liberalization Era
Amr Adly, State Reform and Development in the Middle East: Turkey and Egypt in the Post-Liberalization Era. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Amr Adly (AA): The book is based on my PhD dissertation that I completed in September 2010 at the European University Institute in Florence. I specialized in political economy, and decided to write my thesis on the political economy of the Middle East in general, and Egypt in particular. My choice had to do with finding alternatives to culturalist approaches to studying the region, which usually focus on factors such as religion and identity politics. I hoped to contribute to ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Ilana Feldman, The Challenge of Categories: UNRWA and the Definition of a "Palestine Refugee"
Ilana Feldman, "The Challenge of Categories: UNRWA and the Definition of a 'Palestine Refugee.'" Journal of Refugee Studies 25.3 (2012). Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this article? Ilana Feldman (IF): There were two primary motivating forces for writing this article. First, it is part of a special issue in the Journal of Refugee Studies on “The Refugee in the Post-War World, 1945-1960,” that itself was a result of a conference of the same name. By participating in this issue, and by placing the Palestinian refugee experience within the broader landscape of post-World War II displacement, I seek to contribute to challenging conceptions of ...
Keep Reading »On the UAE's Decision to Refuse Entry to Professor Kristian Coates
![[Dubai International Airport. Image by Alina Sofia via Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_5476083530_ae11572f49.jpg "[Dubai International Airport. Image by Alina Sofia via Flickr]")
This past Thursday, 28 February 2013, I was supposed to go to Dubai. The trip was to attend a one-day workshop on Sunday, 3 March 2013 in which the Alexandria Trust was expected to launch "al-Fanar,” a new publication devoted to the state of higher education in the Arab world. However, given the recent decision by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to deny entry to Professor Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of the London School of Economics (LSE), the whole launch was cancelled. Dr. Ulrichsen was supposed to give a paper on Bahrain in a conference organized by the American University of Sharjah in collaboration with LSE. He had earlier received a visa ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Jeannie Sowers, Environmental Politics in Egypt: Activists, Experts, and the State
Jeannie Sowers, Environmental Politics in Egypt: Activists, Experts, and the State. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Jeannie Sowers (JS): In Egypt, as elsewhere, environmental issues are often viewed as secondary to issues of “high politics,” such as national elections and debates among political elites. Yet so many of the core concerns of politics—power, resources, justice—are most clearly seen in who has access to land, health, water, and other essential services and goods. “Environmental” concerns, broadly conceived, are thus central to political debates and substantive outcomes concerning representation, ...
Keep Reading »Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Unpacking Knowledge Production and Consumption
[This is one of seven contributions in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the symbolic and material practices of knowledge production on the Arabian Peninsula. Moderated by Rosie Bsheer and John Warner, it features Toby Jones, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Adam Hanieh, Neha Vora, Nathalie Peutz, John Willis, and Ahmed Kanna.] (1) Historically, what have the dominant analytical approaches to the study of the Arabian Peninsula been? How have the difficulties of carrying out research in the Arabian ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Adel Iskandar and Bassam Haddad, Mediating the Arab Uprisings
Adel Iskandar and Bassam Haddad, editors, Mediating the Arab Uprisings. Washington, DC: Tadween Publishing, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Adel Iskandar and Bassam Haddad (AI & BH): The idea for this book grew out of the splendid contributions to Jadaliyya from a number of authors who offered interventions on the role of media in the uprisings. With a dearth of critical examinations about the media and the representation of these movements, it became increasingly urgent to ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers, The Arab Revolts
David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers, editors, The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Published in association with Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume? David McMurray & Amanda Ufheil-Somers (DM & AU): MERIP recently published an edited volume with Verso on just the events in Egypt, examining the initial eighteen days of the uprising as well as ...
Keep Reading »The Perils for Academic Freedom in the Arab World
[The following article was originally published on Tadween Publishing's blog. For more information on the publishing world as it relates to pedagogy and knowledge production, follow Tadween Publishing on Facebook and Twitter.] Calls for change have swept across the Arab world since the uprisings erupted over two years ago. While the process and struggle for political and social freedoms continue, freedom in the world of academia has become a recent, ...
Keep Reading »Battle for the .book Domain
Amazon has come under critical fire recently in the publishing world for its attempt to take control of generic top-level domains (gTLD) that end in .book, .author, and .read. The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Amazon rival Barnes & Noble have all taken issue with Amazon’s pursuit of the domain names. By allowing Amazon to have the monopoly on such domain names would give them greater and unchecked authority over the presence of the publishing world on the internet. ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Rashid Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
Rashid Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Boston: Beacon Press, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Rashid Khalidi (RK): I had long wanted to use the large number of documents—position papers, minutes of meetings, internal memos, official proposals, and so forth—that I had collected as an advisor to the Madrid and Washington Palestinian-Israeli negotiations from 1991-1993, but I never found the right opportunity to do so. The research of one ...
Keep Reading »When I Saw You
Lamma Shoftak [When I Saw You]. Directed by Annemarie Jacir. Jordan-Palestine-UAE-Greece, 2012. Annemarie Jacir’s Lamma Shoftak/When I Saw You extends her examination of exile and occupation begun in her début feature Milh Hadha al-Bahr [Salt of This Sea] (2008), as well as her earlier shorts and documentaries. Salt of This Sea takes the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) as a moment of collective trauma through which Soraya (Suheir Hammad), a young Palestinian American woman from Brooklyn (and Jaffa), attempts ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Paul Aarts and Francesco Cavatorta, Civil Society in Syria and Iran
Paul Aarts and Francesco Cavatorta, editors, Civil Society in Syria and Iran: Activism in Authoritarian Contexts. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you put together this book? Paul Aarts and Francesco Cavatorta (PA & FC): We started collaborating in early 2009 on a project looking at civil society dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa. We were not entirely satisfied with the mainstream understanding of civil society activism and its natural or inevitable link to ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Rachel Beckles Willson, Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West
Rachel Beckles Willson, Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Rachel Beckles Willson (RBW): In 2004, I was puzzled by the way that the English press—specifically newspapers that are usually rather critical, The Guardian and The Observer—responded to some western classical music initiatives in Ramallah led by the celebrated conductor Daniel Barenboim. It all seemed to be ...
Keep Reading »Deadline for Applications: M.A. in Middle East and Islamic Studies at George Mason University
The Middle East Studies Program and the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University announce the deadline for applications for the Fall/Spring 2013-2014 academic year: 15 March 2013. Click HERE for more information Click HERE to apply The aim of this degree program is to reposition the study of the Middle East and Islam within a global context to help students better analyze particular issues in light of current events and shifting historical paradigms. The program’s core ...
Keep Reading »NEWTON in Focus: Egypt
This week we highlight various NEWTON texts relevant to the study of Egypt. The authors of these texts write from a wide range of perspectives and approach questions with which Egypt has grappled, not only in the wake of Tahrir, but throughout its modern existence. We encourage you to integrate these texts into your curricula in the coming semesters. If you wish to recommend a book or peer-reviewed article for a feature in NEWTON—whether on Egypt or on any other topics relevant to the region—please ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Dina Rizk Khoury, Iraq in Wartime: Soldiering, Martyrdom, and Remembrance
Dina Rizk Khoury, Iraq in Wartime: Soldiering, Martyrdom, and Remembrance. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Dina Rizk Khoury (DRK): The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was the chief impetus for writing this book. I had been about halfway through writing a book on the politics of reform and rebellion in Ottoman Baghdad when the build-up for the 2003 invasion began. Ottoman Baghdad receded very quickly from my focus. I was frustrated as a ...
Keep Reading »Hot on Facebook
This might even constitute the occasion for the beginning of the first serious attempt since the Balfour Declaration to explain the Palestinian cause fully and properly to the entire world.click | email | tweet
.jpg){kind=small}
From Jadaliyya Reports
Top Jadaliyya Tags
Jadalicious / جدلشس
Noteworthy
Twitter Updates
Jadaliyya Features
.jpg)
Latest Entries
View All Entries »- Tadween Roundup: News and Analysis from the Publishing/Academic World
- Syria Media Roundup (May 23)
- Asfari Institute Inaugural Conference: New Spaces of Civil Society Activism in the Arab World (Beirut, 23-24 May)
- Women's Rights in the Egyptian Constitution: (Neo)Liberalism's Family Values
- مسخ الذاكرة
- New Texts Out Now: Louise Cainkar, Global Arab World Migrations and Diasporas
- Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (May 21)
- إعادة الحساب الدائمة: إساءة فهم سوريا بعد سنتين
- From al-Araqib to Susiya: Forced Displacement of Palestinians on Both Sides of the Green Line
- إعجام
- كارل ماركس واليسار في لبنان
- Picturing Algeria
- Egypt Media Roundup (May 20)
- Last Week on Jadaliyya (May 13-19)
- Jadaliyya's Occupation, Intervention, and Law Page Resonates
- Al Jazeera Management Orders Joseph Massad Article Pulled in an Act of Pro-Israel Censorship
- سعادت حسن منتو: قصة قصيرة
- Reports Roundup (May 18)
- Injuries, Arrests and House Raids: The Case of a Bahraini Family
- الليبرالية الفلسطينية أمام القضاء الإسرائيلي
Pages/Sections
Archive
©2010-2013 by the Arab Studies Institute. All Rights Reserved. info@jadaliyya.com
site by concepcion design