Culture

Nicola’s Books | Ann Arbor’s Premier Independent Book Store | 734-662-0600 | info@nicolasbooks.com You need to read some books while sheltering in place to keep sane. Independent bookstores need to sell books to stay in business while their stores are shuttered. It is a match made in heaven. It may seem convenient to order books […]

Books

For World Poetry Day: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

Translated by Juan Cole From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Tonight, who brought you, tipsy, here to me? From there beneath the veil, whose hand brought you? –to one on fire because of your absence– one like a sirocco; who brought you here? (Whinfield 2) ( revised) N.B.: In April of 2020, Bloomsbury/ I. B. […]

Epidemics

Blues in the time of Pandemic, 1919 — “In a few days influenza would be controlled”

Shalom Goldman

Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment) – The great influenza pandemic of 1918-19 , which raged in the aftermath of the 1914-18 World War, killed and incapacitated over 50 million people worldwide. In the U.S. over 600, 000 people died in the pandemic. Survivors of that pandemic have left us a rich cultural legacy , […]

Archaeology

In Ancient Greek Thought, Plagues Follow on Bad Leadership

Juan Cole

By Joel Christensen | – In the fifth century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins “Oedipus Tyrannos” with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) As someone who writes about early Greek poetry, I spend a lot of time thinking about […]

Entertainment

Arif “The Greatest Ears in Town” Mardin: How a Turkish Muslim Nurtured the Music of Aretha Franklin, Dione Warwick, and Nora Jones

Shalom Goldman

Middlebury, VT (Special to Informed Comment) – In the mid-twentieth century many American jazz musicians converted to Islam . Some took Muslim names ( Ahmed Jamal and Yusef Lateef) ; others identified as Muslim but kept their Christian names (Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner). These musicians helped shape the sound of American music and no less […]

Donald Trump

“Children of Men” Come True: Trump Immigration Crackdown outdoes Cuaron’s Science Fiction Dystopia

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Like the dystopian nightmare imagined in the 2006 science fiction masterpiece Children of Men, Trump’s xenophobic efforts to terminate immigration result in death, suffering, humiliation, and destroyed lives. Under Trump, the speed of America’s plunge into casual barbarism is breathtaking. Along with the illusory border wall, the immigration clampdown […]

Science Fiction

Science Fiction Author William Gibson: Nostalgia for the Present and Future Fatigue

The Conversation

By Andre Spicer | – The future isn’t what it used to be, at least according to the Canadian science fiction novelist William Gibson. In a interview with the BBC, Gibson said people seemed to be losing interest in the future. “All through the 20th century we constantly saw the 21st century invoked,” he said. […]

Archaeology

Trump’s Twitter threat to destroy Iran’s cultural sites was a historic mistake

The Conversation

By David J. Wasserstein | – Be careful of the company you keep. In a threat delivered over Twitter on Jan. 4, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is prepared to “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD” culturally important targets in Iran should the country retaliate for the American killing of its top general. […]

Omar Khayyam

How to Write Rubaiyat

Juan Cole

Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was a worldwide publishing phenomenon from about 1880 until the 1970s, and is still beloved by many readers. Rubaiyat is actually a plural, meaning “quatrains.” The singular would be ruba’i, with a long a and “a” long “i.” The word is from the Arabic root for […]