BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

New Book Studies Egypt’s Modern History Through the Production of Its Number One Beer, Stella
By Al Jadid Staff

Lebanon and Egypt are the only two Muslim-majority countries to boast of significant alcoholic beverage industries. For the Lebanese this means Arak, the anise-flavored grape-wine whose production (and consumption) is nothing less than a matter of national pride. Egyptians, for their part, have a similar reputation with regard to beer-making, though this has not been quite as visible since the 1970s, when Sadat began appeasing the Islamists.

Books

FROM OUR ARCHIVES: TWO DECADES AGO IN AL JADID

Sayyed Darwish, Major Arab Music Pioneer
By Nezar Mrouhe

“There have been many attempts to suppress Darwish’s musical legacy, and reviving this legacy will expose how much some musicians have “borrowed” from him. Thus, bringing the musical legacy of Darwish into the public domain is a step toward revitalizing Arabic music and setting the record straight,” in the words of Nezar Mrouhe.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

The Metamorphosis of a 19th Century Syrian Feminist: Hanna K. Kourani’s Journey from Lebanese Village to Chicago Women’s Rights Conference
By Al Jadid Staff

One recent book tells the story of a woman’s journey into the Arab feminist movement, at home and abroad – a journey that took her to the city of Chicago in the late 19th century. Hanna Kasbani Kourani (alternatively Hanna K. Korany) was born in 1870 in the town of Kfershima, a village that today is part of Lebanon. Throughout her travels, however, she was referred to as from Ottoman Syria. Kourani was educated at American and English missionary schools and taught in Tripoli’s American Girls School. Syrian writer and novelist Taissier Khalaf’s “The Early Women’s Movement in Ottoman Syria: The Experience of Hanna Kasbani Kourani, 1892-1896” (2019) traces Kourani’s accomplishments during her stay in Chicago, when she toured the United States giving lectures on Syrian life. She arrived in Chicago as the Syrian women’s representative for the World’s Congress of Representative Women in 1893.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS & FEATURES IN THE CURRENT AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Lebanon’s Tide of Change: Revolutionaries vs. Predators
By Elie Chalala

The Lebanese and Iraqi uprisings, and recently those in Algeria and Sudan, have shaken up the gloom and doom discourse following the first wave of the Arab Spring in 2011. Following the Iranian-Russian-Assadist “victory” over the Syrian revolution, Hezbollah pundits and pseudo-leftists declared it fruitless to replace more than half a century of Syrian tyranny with a democratic system. Those same pundits have recently demonized the second wave of Arab protests in Lebanon and Iraq, portraying them as the outcome of imperialist conspiracies and predicting for them the same fate of the first wave in Syria. Unlike previous conflicts in Lebanon that divided the country along confessional lines, the current revolution includes all sects, both Christian and Muslim – a remarkable historical change. While sectarianism is deep-rooted in Lebanon, and in fact enshrined in the confessional apportionment of state power, the current uprising has united ordinary Lebanese against the corruption of the powerful.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Muayyad al-Rawi, Iraqi Poet And Renaissance Man Whose Work Painted a Portrait of the 1960s
By Al Jadid Staff

Muayyad al-Rawi, the poet and intellectual, pushed the free verse movement of Arabic poetry into a new dawn during the 1960s. To many, Muayyad was a literary theorist and spiritual guide for this generation of Iraqis. “If we want to draw a portrait of the 1960s, al-Rawi was one of its most important members; and however short the memory of subsequent literary generations, that era remains a milestone in the history of radical rebellions in Iraqi culture,” said Iraqi author Fatima al-Mohsen.

Essays and Features

On Hips and Heritage: Cairo Nativists Object to Invasion of Foreign Belly Dancers!

By 
Naomi Pham

The recent arrest of Russian belly dancer Ekaterina Andreeva, who goes by her stage name Johara, has sparked questions about how to view foreigners participating in this dance career. In his article for the New York Times, Declan Walsh discusses this supposed “sullying” of the Egyptian ancient art form. In Egypt’s current belly-dancing scene, foreigners -- the majority of whom come from America, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Eastern Europe – dominate the ranks and appear among the most well-known dancers in their field. According to Walsh, “The foreigners bring an athletic, high-energy sensibility to the dance, more disco than Arabian Nights. Their sweeping routines contrast with the languid, subtly suggestive style of classic Egyptian stars. Some are overtly sexual.”

‘Egyptian-American’: The Hyphenated Experience

By 
Priscilla Wathington
 
Looking Both Ways
By Pauline Kaldas
Cune Press, 2017
 
Something about Pauline Kaldas’ new memoir makes you feel both adrift and at home – sensations normally at war with each other. Yet, somehow, in her rounded phrases and softly imparted narratives, the elements of surprise and familiarity find balance in each other.
 
Composed of a string of personal essays, her history unfolds over many moments, rather than the narration of a single breath.

‘Traveling Scholar’ Ella Shohat: The Contradictions and Challenges of Being an Arab Jew

As a public intellectual, Ella Shohat has found that her personal history profoundly informs her scholarship. Born in Israel to Iraqi parents who had migrated to that country after 1948, Shohat grew up in an Israeli culture that discriminated against Mizrahi Jews. Living a life of contradictions and tension as an “Arab-Jew” – a person of the Jewish religion whose culture and primary language are Arabic, she has found herself on countless occasions having to explain an identity that seemed like an oxymoron, an impossibility, to academics and others.

Chronicling Syrians’ Personal Stories of Struggle to Reach Safe Refuge

By 
Sarah Rogers

On Friday January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that, for a 90-day period, suspended immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. It also, for a period of 120 days, suspended the Refugee Resettlement Program, placing an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees. “Leaving Syria: Seeking Refuge in Greece” makes clear the plight of Syrian refugees traces back to a much longer and tragic history.


Leaving Syria: Seeking Refuge in Greece
By Bill Dienst, MD and Madi Williamson
Cune Press, 2017

Little Time to Rest: 'Daughters' of Nomads

By 
Pamela Nice

Watching “Daughters of Anatolia,” a film documenting the nomadic lifestyle of goat herders in contemporary Turkey, makes one aware of the value of ethnographic filmography over its drier, academic prose cousin. Describing the migratory path from the Mediterranean Sea to the Taurus Mountains cannot compare with seeing the breath-taking beauty of mountains in bloom as goats scramble over them.

Broadway’s ‘Oslo’ Highlights Human Drama of Famous Peace Accords

By 
Naomi Pham

With two nations at odds for more than half of a century, different major power players brought all types of peace attempts to the table, but to no avail, with two significant exceptions. The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1979 stands as a lonely, if successful peace attempt, while the 1993 Oslo Accords represent the second, partially successful and incomplete effort. As a result, Palestinians and Israelis formally recognized each other’s existence, and committed themselves to working together to resolve the conflict in a non-violent manner.

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