Books

Excerpted from Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction Available from City Lights The center of the world, where recorded civilization got its start over 7,000 years ago, can be found in southwestern Asia, in ancient Mesopotamia. It can be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, in the Torah and the […]

Books

The film ‘Dune’: Techno-Orientalism, and Intergalactic Islam

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

“Based on Herbert’s 1965 science fiction classic, “Dune” is a tale of a rising duke, intergalactic power struggles, a precious spice, and lethal spaceworms. The story, which deals with religion, politics, myth, destiny, heritage, environmental decay and colonialism resonates as much with audiences today as it did when the novel was first published.” ( TRT […]

Books

Dune Part Two: The Islamic Dimension

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Journalist and science fiction writer Frank Herbert’s Dune epic has many themes. One is, clearly, environmentalism and the need for humans to adapt to their environment. Another is the struggle between regimented bureaucratic civilization and individualism. Yet another is the temptation to use religion for liberatory purposes. The Denis Villeneuve […]

Books

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: “When New Year’s rainclouds wash the tulip’s face”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the quatrains attributed to the medieval Iranian astronomer Omar Khayyam, the Rubáiyát, the renewal that comes with New Year is an important theme. Since the Iranian New Year is held on the spring solstice (typically March 21), it is associated with the rebirth of greenery. This year I’m sharing […]

Books

In the Shadow of War: Life and Fiction in Twenty-First Century America

Tomdispatch

By Beverly Gologorsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – I’m a voracious reader of American fiction and I’ve noticed something odd in recent years. This country has been eternally “at war” and you just wouldn’t know that — a small amount of veteran’s fiction aside — from the novels that are generally published. For at least a decade, […]

Books

Plagues and Painting with Words: Glimpses of Orhan Pamuk’s Writing Process

Erdag Goknar

By Erdağ Göknar | – ( LA Review of Books) – DURING THE LONG summer days in Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk devotes himself to intensive writing on Büyükada, an island in the Sea of Marmara, and in the evenings, he meets with visitors. Last August, Pamuk and I had dinner there and discussed everything from politics […]

Antisemitism

Teaching the Holocaust through Literature: four books to help Young People gain deeper Understanding

The Conversation

By Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth | – A survey commissioned in 2019 revealed the shocking result that over half of Britons did not know that at least six millions Jews had been murdered during the Holocaust. This result was all the more surprising given the fact that the Holocaust, as a topic, has been […]

Books

The End of Progressive Book Publishing in the Age of Monopoly Capital?

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – No one listened better than Studs. For those of you old enough to remember, that’s Studs Terkel, of course. The most notable thing about him in person, though, was this: the greatest interviewer of his moment, perhaps of any moment, never stopped talking, except, of course, when he was listening to produce […]

Books

Of Course there were Africans in Middle Earth, Just as there Were in Medieval England

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American white nationalism has attempted to appropriate certain cultures, times and places as quintessentially “white,” and so it is no surprise that, as John Blake at CNN writes, there is controversy on the American Right about the multicultural casting visible in the Amazon Prime series Rings of Power, based on […]