All posts by tabsir

Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue

"Arab Spring", Conferences and Talks, Development, Scholars, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION;
YEMENI COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL DIALOGUE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

The International Peace Institute (IPI) is pleased to host a roundtable discussion on the Yemeni Dialogue with Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, former Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Program on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, from 1:00pm–2:45pm at IPI’s Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security & Development on the 12th floor, located at 777 United Nations Plaza.

Yemen’s transition began on November 23, 2011, when an agreement was brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) creating a two-year transitional government led by President (and former Vice-President) Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. The agreement mandates holding a National Dialogue to decide the formation of the new movement and address other pressing national issues. According to the GCC agreement, the National Dialogue conference must include “all forces and political actors, including youth, the Southern Movement, the Houthis, other political parties, civil society representatives and women.” Continue reading Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue →

Digital Heroes: Video Games and Identity Construction in Iran

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, CyberOrient, Iran


The Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center of The Graduate Center at CUNY announces a lecture by Vit Sisler (Charles University) entitled Digital Heroes: Video Games and Identity Construction in Iran. This will be held February 11, 2013 from 6:30 PM TO 8:30 PM in Rom 9204 of The Graduate Center. For more information, click here. Admission is free.

Abstract:
Video games are a popular leisure time activity for a substantial part of Iranian youth. At the same time, most games on the Iranian market are of US, European, or Japanese origin. Unsurprisingly, the Iranian authorities are concerned about the negative influence of such games on Iranian youth. Therefore, they established the National Foundation of Computer Games in Tehran in 2006 in order to subsidize development of games in Iran, conceived in accordance with Iranian and Islamic values. Consequently, a variety of independent producers have become involved in this emerging industry. The lecture analyzes contemporary Iranian video games and explores the ways in which they communicate different concepts of identity. Essentially, whereas the Iranian government perceives games as a new semiotic language of the youth and utilizes them to promote Islamic values and foster national pride, many independent producers maneuver within the and around state’s interests, presenting instead their own, oftentimes quite different ideas. Therefore, the resulting concepts of identity are achieved through sensitive negotiations between the demands, funding and restrictions of the Islamic state and the visions and engagement of private entrepreneurs.

Vit Sisler is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. His research deals with the problematic of contemporary Islamic law, the relation between Islam and digital media, normative frameworks in cyberspace, and the topic of educational and political video games. Vit Sisler was a visiting Fulbright scholar at Northwestern University in 2008-2009. He is also a managing editor of CyberOrient, a peer reviewed journal founded by the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association.

Sex in the Muslim City

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Egypt, Gender and Sexuality


by Carlin Romano, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 14, 2013

Is it possible all those young men clashing in the streets of Cairo and Damascus aren’t getting enough?

Democracy? No, I mean that other thing people seek and are willing to die for.

Talk of the “Arab Spring” now forms a clichéd part of pundit chatter in America, with plays on “Arab Winter” and “Arab Fall” depending on the politics of the speaker and the troubled country dissolving at the moment. But few talking heads know enough about Arab culture to tie the massive Mideast street actions we’ve seen to matters behind surface politics. And those background matters include the state of Arab marriage, the tension between so-called Western norms and Islamic pieties, and the suppressed sexuality among Arab youth who face financial and theological obstacles to fulfilling their desires.

Is it tasteless to mix somber stuff like political rebellion with sub-rosa lust and denial? Could be it’s truthful rather than tasteless.

Thank you, then, Shereen El Feki—Cambridge-educated immunologist, former science writer for The Economist, current vice chair of the U.N.’s Global Commission on HIV and Law—for adventuring beyond the headlines in Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, forthcoming from Pantheon Books. It’s a trenchant exploration of the uncertainties filling the humble abodes that Tahrir Square demonstrators go home to. A truthful book may not set you free when you’ve suffered under centuries of misguided interpretations of Islam and sex, but one prays that El Feki gets an Arabic edition.

In the West, her blunt examination of sex and its attendant practices and paraphernalia—topics include vibrators, Viagra, virginity codes, marital rape, and homophobia—would hardly raise an eyebrow. We Westerners live now in a Fifty Shades world, a publishing culture in which Naomi Wolf’s Vagina gets reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review by former ballerina Toni Bentley—she of The Surrender (a title meant to evoke the offering of another body part)—and one hopes the kids aren’t watching. Continue reading Sex in the Muslim City →

Remembering Arab Spring Photographer Rémi Ochlik

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Journalism and Media, Libya, Photography, Syria, Tunisia


Photographer Rémi Ochlik who was killed last year in Syria at the age of 28 (Photo: Corentin Fohlen)

By Adeline Sire, PRI’s The World, February 1, 2013

Many journalists have died covering the Arab uprisings.

Last year, 17 were killed in Syria.

One of them was award-winning French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik.

He was only 28-years-old.

Ochlik documented the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

Then last year, he headed out to Syria. Continue reading Remembering Arab Spring Photographer Rémi Ochlik →

Egypt Week in New York

Conferences and Talks, Egypt, Film and Video, Music and Dance


Egyptian pianist, Mohamed Shams

EGYPT MINI-SERIES FEBRUARY 2013 
LINCOLN CENTER

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
BRUNO WALTER AUDITORIUM
(entrance @ 111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 64th street)



PROGRAM

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 2 @ 2.30 PM
Opera in Arabic:
On translating opera into classical and colloquial Egyptian Arabic, with Baritone Raouf Zaidan, Bass Baritone Ashraf Sewailam and Kamel Boutros, piano – moderated by Nimet Habachy of WQXR Classical Music Station New York



SUNDAY FEBRUARY 3 @ 2.30 PM
Music for Piano and French Horn:
Recital by Amr Selim (winner, Northeast Horn competition 2012), and Seba Ali, both winners of the 2012 Ackerman Chamber Music competition 2012 at Stony Brook, NY
And a choreographic offering specially created for Seba and Amr by Cherylyn Lavagnino with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance (CLD) dancers Ramona Kelley and Justin Flores


MONDAY FEBRUARY 4 @ 6 PM
Music of Arab American composer Mohammed Fairouz
With the Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Ensemble 212 and the Mimesis Ensemble
Curated by Katie Reimer

 Continue reading Egypt Week in New York →

Tabsir Redux: Headless in Saudi Arabia

Humor and Satire, Saudi Arabia, Travel

[”Traffic sign in Saudi Arabia. The man-without-a-head symbol indicates a pedestrian sidewalk.”]

I recently came across a rather plebian junior high school level text on The Middle East: History, Culture, People (by Thomas G. Kavunedos and Harold E. Hammond, Bronxville, New York, Cambridge Book Company, Inc, 1968). The book is quite forgetable, but some of the illustrations bring you to a full stop. My favorite is the illustration above. If indeed this was once the sign for a crosswalk, no wonder everyone seems to drive Mercedes in the kingdom.

Daniel Martin Varisco

[Tabsir Redux is a reposting of earlier posts on the blog, since memories are fickle and some things deserve a second viewing. This post was originally made on October 10, 2006.]

Iranian Studies Directory Online

Anthropology/Sociology, Archaeology and Antiquities, Iran, Scholars, Shi'a, Teaching Resources


Putting the world’s scholars and organisations at your fingertips, the Iranian Studies Directory (ISD) is a pioneering initiative to develop a comprehensive reference and research facility that will open up the fields of Persian and Iranian studies to academics, teachers, students, curators, professionals and lay enthusiasts across the globe.

If you are in any way involved in the world of Iranian or Persian studies, get networked now! Register with this public resource and connect yourself to other professionals and institutions in your field throughout the world.