Recent Stories

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year
 
Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

Pages

Our Current Issue

The Door That Arrived Before the Truth:

When Evidence Becomes an Exhibit
By Naomi Pham
 
“Everything became visible. The prisons were opened. People entered them. Cells were photographed. Papers, clothes, remnants of beds, doors, and instruments of torture were collected. What had once been hidden was now placed before everyone’s eyes,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “Should We ‘Eat Each Other’s Worries’?”, published in Al Modon.* Yet visibility does not necessarily constitute remembrance, nor does displaying the material remains of suffering mean that those who suffered have been cared for in the aftermath. The 63rd Damascus International Fair held in late August brought the horrors of Assad’s prisons out under open air for all to see. The exhibition “When the Walls Speak” was presented in the Interior Ministry’s pavilion. The exhibit included a reconstruction of a cell using real cell doors, detainees’ clothing, handcuffs and other restraints, and a chair used for torture — all items collected from the various prisons and security branches, including Military Security Branch 248, which operated under the Assad regime.
Essays and Features

What Lies Beyond the Safe Story:

Algeria and the Courage to Look
By Elie Chalala
 
A healthy literature cannot be entirely free of crime fiction, or, more broadly, of literature that confronts crime, violence, and human conflict. No society is free of conflicts, whether visible or hidden. A brief look at Algeria’s history before and after independence reveals a long record of political upheaval, repression, and violence. The question, then, is not whether such realities exist, but whether literature is willing to confront them.
Essays and Features

Two Approaches to Death, One Crisis of Governance:

Rethinking the Death Penalty in Syria and Lebanon
By Naomi Pham
 
“A state is not tested when it tries someone who is widely loved. It is tested when it tries someone whom most of the country despises,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “On One Day, Beirut Abolishes and Damascus Executes.” This observation is particularly relevant to the recent death penalty decisions in Syria and Lebanon, where the question of punishment has become inseparable from the question of state governance. On August 11, the Damascus Criminal Court sentenced former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, cousin Atef Najib, former Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij, and five other former regime officials to death, a ruling that raises broader questions about what kind of government Syria will establish in the aftermath of the Assad regime. On the same day, Lebanon’s parliament approved the abolition of the death penalty, a decision that Marwan Harb argues may carry little meaning for Lebanese citizens unless the state can also address its political and social failures. Together, the contrasting decisions in Syria and Lebanon demonstrate how the death penalty can serve not merely as a form of punishment, but as a measure of a state’s commitment to justice, accountability, and legitimate governance.
Essays and Features

When Delay Becomes Part of the Crime:

August 4 and the Collapse of Lebanon's Last Illusion
By Elie Chalala
 
The Beirut Port explosion was not simply a tragic accident, but a catastrophe enabled by years of political negligence and institutional complacency. On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Hangar 12 alongside fireworks exploded, killing at least 218 people, injuring roughly 7,000, and displacing approximately 300,000 more. Yet in the six years since the blast, efforts to hold those responsible accountable have been repeatedly obstructed, leaving justice suspended and the victims without closure. Rather than focusing solely on the explosion itself, Sally Ali in her essay, “August 4 and the Insolence of Crime,” examines the political structure that allowed such dangerous conditions to persist and, more importantly, the system that has survived largely unchanged in its aftermath. The question is not simply whether justice has yet to arrive, but whether the greater danger lies in the state’s ability to endure six entire years after a crime that should have fundamentally transformed it.
Essays and Features

Between Languages and Legacies:

French, Historical Memory, and Algeria's Linguistic Future
By Naomi Pham
 
In Algeria, the debate over whether French should be replaced by English has become increasingly entangled with broader geopolitical and ideological tensions, often overshadowing the country’s actual linguistic and educational needs. In his discussion of Algeria’s “language question,” Algerian novelist and author Waciny Laredj rejects both the demonization of French and the uncritical glorification of English, arguing instead for a pragmatic, historically informed, and educationally sound approach to multilingualism.* French remains deeply embedded in Algerian society, from everyday communication to education and professional life, making its complete removal an enormous and potentially disruptive undertaking. At the same time, Laredj challenges narratives that portray French solely as a colonial legacy, pointing to moments in which the language played an important role in intellectual, political, and liberation movements. The question facing Algeria is not simply whether French should be replaced by English, but whether such a transition is practical, historically conscious, and genuinely beneficial to the country and future generations.
Essays and Features

The Secret History: Reframing Arab American Origin Stories Through a Queer Lens

By 
Angele Ellis
 
Possible Histories: Arab Americans and the Queer Ecology of Peddling
By Charlotte Karem Albrecht
University of California Press, 2023
 
Charlotte Karem Albrecht begins her groundbreaking study with an Arab American family origin story that departs from the heteronormative narrative of intrepid immigrant peddlers achieving success and assimilating into white American s

New Book Examines ‘Solidarity Tourism’ in Palestine as the ‘Voice of the People’

By 
Lynne Rogers
 
Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine
By Jennifer Lynn Kelly
Duke University Press, 2023
 
In her book “Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tours across Occupied Palestine,” Jennifer Lynn Kelly explores an aspect of the recent phenomena of trauma/tragedy travel by focusing on the solidarity tours in Occupied Palestine.

Farewell to Habib Sadek (1931-2023): Friend, Poet, and Exceptionally Honest Politician

Having Self-Exiled from the Turbulent World of Lebanese Politics, Sadek Dies Peacefully at 92
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Rarely do I get personal in my notebooks and essays, but this time I will. On July 1, 2023, I lost a friend in Lebanon whom I had known for more than four decades, and even longer if I count the years before I met him in person in Los Angeles. Habib Sadek (1931-2023) was a Lebanese intellectual, poet, author, head of the Cultural Council of Southern Lebanon, former parliamentarian, and, more importantly, someone whose support deeply impacted the early years of Al Jadid Magazine, for which I will always be grateful.

Nazik al-Malaika: Queen of Free Verse Remains Uncertain

Fifty Years of Debate Yield No Consensus Over Her Place on the Throne of New Arabic Poetry
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Rarely do I open a cultural page in Arab newspapers, whether print or online, without catching wind of new discourse on modern poetry. Though I have never written poetry, the topic naturally draws my interest as an academic in political science, lecturing on debates between tradition and modernity for nearly a third of a century...Debates between traditional and new poetry shouldn’t be dismissed as simply Byzantine arguments. Such discourse indicates significant changes in the Arab world, including modernization and later globalization. Several critics have raised this discussion, the latest of which was in a column by Aref al-Saadi in Asharq Al Awsat, who writes, “I say this based on a slow study of our contemporary poetry and its trends, and I say it because it is the logical result of our willingness to read European literature and study the latest theories in philosophy, art, and psychology. In reality, those who want to combine modern culture with ancient traditions of poetry are like those living today in the clothes of the first century of immigration.” According to Saadi, there are two alternatives to discussing modernity and tradition: “Either we learn the theories, are influenced by them, and apply them, or we do not learn them at all. It may be useful for us to remember that the development in the arts and literature in a given era arises from the meeting of two or more nations.” Closed nations don’t produce anything new but merely repeat what their ancestors did.
 
Rarely do I open a cultural page in Arab newspapers, whether print or online, without catching wind of new discourse on modern poetry. Though I have never written poetry, the topic naturally draws my interest as an academic in political science, lecturing on debates between tradition and modernity for nearly a third of a century...Debates between traditional and new poetry shouldn’t be dismissed as simply Byzantine arguments.

To a Woman He Never Met: What Gibran’s Love Letters to May Ziadeh Reveal About the Inner Life of the ‘Prophet’s’ Author

By 
Lynne Rogers
 
For the ordinary reader, “Love Letters” is a short yet savorable book, with letters you can thumb through when drawn to thoughtful musings or aspirations to better oneself. For those interested in Gibran as either a literary giant or an artist, this collection of letters provides a nuanced narrative of his deep spiritual yearnings, dedication to his work, extended gentleness, and benevolent humor. This touching correspondence between these two seminal intellectuals weaves together their mundane concerns, from Ziadeh’s change of hairstyle to intimate emotional and spiritual revelations, as well as Gibran’s aesthetic reflections, adding an empathic human depth to further appreciate both his art and life as an artist.
 
For the ordinary reader, “Love Letters” is a short yet savorable book, with letters you can thumb through when drawn to thoughtful musings or aspirations to better oneself. For those interested in Gibran as either a literary giant or an artist, this collection of letters provides a nuanced narrative of his deep spiritual yearnings, dedication to his work, extended gentleness, and benevolent humor.

A Fresh Look at the Debate: Definitions and Historiography of Arab Americans in the New Century

1-4
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Arab American literature and how we define it remains central to the field’s discourse. Some scholars believe prior knowledge of Arab culture is essential to comprehending Arab American literature since it is an ethnic genre. Since the 20th century until the present, Arab Americans have strongly lobbied to classify Arab American studies as an ethnic field and draw a line between Middle East studies — which belongs to the area studies — and ethnic studies.

Pages