There are quite a few classic Arabic movies available in full on Youtube, if you search by the Arabic name. An example is the early Youssef Chahine film Bâb al-Hadîd (Cairo Station in English) in the original Arabic without subtitles.
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Heather Raffo at Hofstra
“Art as Cultural Diplomacy – performance and talk with Heather Raffoâ€
Wednesday 10/26, 8PM in the Cultural Center Theater
as part of the Day of Dialogue
Celebrated actress and Playwright Heather Raffo comes to Hofstra University for discussion about the role theater plays in our understanding of contemporary war. Through the performance and discussion of selected monologues from her acclaimed play 9 Parts of Desire about the lives of Iraqi women, Raffo, takes the audience deep into the heart of why theater can best communicate the complex issues still facing Iraq and America today.
Heather Raffo is the recipient of a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation and the Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Fellowship for her play 9 Parts of Desire. Most recently she has received a 2005 Lucille Lortel award for Best Solo show as well as an Outer Critics Circle Nomination and a Drama League nomination for Outstanding Performance. Premiering in 2003 in, Edinburgh, the play then moved to London, where critics hailed it as one of the five best plays in London in late 2003. It ran for nine sold out months in New York City before touring the U.S. and internationally. Heather has also performed widely in a range of celebrated productions in NY and beyond, earning a Drama League Nomination among other accolades. She has also offered discussion-presentations in a variety of educational settings. She received her BA from the University of Michigan, her MFA from the University of San Diego and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Originally from Michigan, Heather now lives in New York. Her father is from Iraq and her mother is American. For more information, see http://www.heatherraffo.com/
Co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies Department, Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies Program (MECA), The Center for Civic Engagement, Comparative Literature and Languages, and Dance and Drama
Tabsir Redux: With Ratzel in North Africa
One of the most important German geographers of the late 19th century was Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), whose three-volume Völkerkunde (Leipzig and Vienna, Bibliographisches Institut, 1890) is one of those encyclopedia cultural accounts that circulated just as the discipline of anthropology was getting off (in this case literally “on”) the ground. While now a text for curiosity rather than critical scholarship on peoples and cultures, Ratzel’s work is still a fascinating portrayal of cultures being colonized for both revealing the biases of the day and the then-contemporary illustrations of people and material culture. My university library recently divested itself of uncirculated books in storage and one of these was an 1890 edition of the third volume on “Die Kulturvölker der Alten und Neuen Welt.” Whether it was the eye-watering althochdeutsch script of the volume or the mere fact it was written in German, no student or professor at Hofstra ever checked this volume out.
In salvaging a third of Ratzel’s opus for a mere dollar, I could not help but be drawn to the illustrations, mostly lithographs but with a few beautiful color plates. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: With Ratzel in North Africa
Break the Silence
Yemeni students involved in the protests in Change Square have put out a video in English about their peaceful attempt to affect change in the government and military. You can watch the video on Youtube.
The fast and furious plot to occupy Iran
Manssor Arbabsiar is shown in this courtroom sketch during an appearance in a Manhattan courtroom in New York on October 11, 2011
by Pepe Escobar, Al Jazeera, October 12, 2011
No one ever lost money betting on the dull predictability of the US government. Just as Occupy Wall Street is firing imaginations all across the spectrum – piercing the noxious revolving door between government and casino capitalism – Washington brought us all down to earth, sensationally advertising an Iranian cum Mexican cartel terror plot straight out of The Fast and the Furious movie franchise. The potential victim: Adel al-Jubeir, the ambassador in the US of that lovely counter-revolutionary Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted the Iran-masterminded terror plot “reads like the pages of a Hollywood script”. It does. And quite a sloppy script at that. Fast and Furious duo Paul Walker/Vin Diesel wouldn’t be caught dead near it.
The good guys in this Washington production are the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). In the words of Attorney General Eric Holder, they uncovered “a deadly plot directed by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate a foreign Ambassador on US soil with explosives.”
Holder added that the bombing of the Saudi embassy in Washington was also part of the plan. Subsequent spinning amplified that to planned bombings of the Israeli embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires. Continue reading The fast and furious plot to occupy Iran
Tabsir Redux: Earth-shaking cleavage
Violence, scandal and sex: the media feed us a daily diet and we lap it up like faithful mutts willing to chase any sensationalized bone thrown our way. So when an Iranian cleric says something ludicrous to our sectarian ears, it is all the more newsworthy because it is so entertaining. But after the recent loss of life in Haiti, Chile and China, is it really a laughing matter when a far-off cleric blames natural disasters on God’s wrath over human behavior? Consider an AP story which broke on April 19 and was submitted, ironically, by a reporter with the first name of Scheherezade (her namesake could spin a tale almost to death). Here is the bait:
Iranian cleric: Promiscuous women cause quakes
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI (AP) – Apr 19, 2010
BEIRUT — A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.
Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.
“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Earth-shaking cleavage
Which man will you buy a “Used” plot from?
The “very scary†Iranian Terror plot
by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, October 12, 2011
The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing reaction one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy.
To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot†hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,†explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’â€
Continue reading Which man will you buy a “Used” plot from?
Arab spring: an interactive timeline of Middle East protests
The Guardian has an interactive and updated timeline on the events labeled the “Arab Spring,” with links to articles in The Guardian. You can choose the time period and the country and the type of event or issue. It is current through September 26, 2011.