Category Archives: Islam

Ntozake Shange, Alice B. Toklas: What Cooks Know

January 23, 2013 “The first effable gazpacho was served to us in Malaga,”  Alice notes.   She and Gertrude Stein would also find “entirely different but equally exquisite” versions of the that soup in Seville and Cordoba, cities once under Islamic … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Cities, Contemporary novel, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Food in literature, Global South, Greek, Islam, Mediterranean, Middle East, Polish, Spanish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Frederick Douglass, H.D.: Egypt Again

Janurary 2, 2013 She never mentioned him and probably never read him.  Still, he anticipated her. Visiting Egypt in 1887, Douglass wrote: “I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were, but the great mass of … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, ancient Greece, Christianity, Classics, Comparative literature, Egypt, Gender, Global South, Islam, Modernist poetry, Poetry, Race, slavery, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Wars, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unending Katrina: Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun

October 31, 2012 I never made it to the World Humanities Forum, a small story in a big storm. New Orleans and New York: this is the tale of two cities that is now unfolding.   I wish I could say: … Continue reading

Posted in Cities, Climate change, Contemporary novel, Environmentalism, Ethnicity, Genre, Islam, Media, Middle East, oceans, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Gore Vidal (1925-2012): 2006 Letter on the Palestinian nation.

August 1, 2012 Gore Vidal’s passing is marked worldwide by a citational frenzy: all those quips, those acidic one-liners, from the past 86 years.  The New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, all have their favorites; the Guardian … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, Arabic, collaboration, Comparative literature, Ethnicity, globe, Islam, Letters, Middle East, Newspapers, Nobel Prize, peripheral networks, print medium, Racial violence, Twentieth century literature, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Spanish Civil War: Hughes and Hemingway

July 4, 2012 The Beinecke Library doesn’t have a great Hemingway Collection (most of his material is at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston), but I did find a rare photo, taken in Madrid in 1937, Hemingway with Langston Hughes, … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Arabic, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Cuba, Cuban poetry, Ethnicity, Global South, Islam, Latin America, Letters, Libraries, Modernist poetry, Newspapers, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Oceanic Archives, Hong Kong University 2012

June 5, 2012 At least I’ve heard Elizabeth DeLoughrey before.   She’s been working on this stuff for years, it’s always a pleaure to get a new installment — in this case, the ocean in danger of being reterritorialized by “seasteading” and … Continue reading

Posted in Americas, Arabic, Chinese art, Christianity, Cities, collaboration, Creole, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Islam, mexico, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, peripheral networks, print medium, Spanish, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Black Pittsburgh

May 2, 2012 I’ve been here before, but it hit me again this time, coming into the city at night.  This has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.   The river and the bridges all lit up — there are … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Arabic, Arts communities, collaboration, Contemporary Art, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Islam, jazz, Media, Music, peripheral networks, Theater, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, world literature, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Two Toledos

April 25, 2012 I’m on my way to Toledo, I told people.  Ohio, not Spain, I added.  Then I found out that the two are in fact sister cities. The association began in the 1920s when University of Toledo President, … Continue reading

Posted in Arabic, architecture, Classics, Educational institutions, epic, Islam, Midwest, mixed races, Spanish, Translation, Universities, world literature, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Iraq in Poetry: Brian Turner

April 4, 2012 Teaching his poetry was easy. There was never any doubt in my mind that it belonged in the course – along with Whitman on the Civil War; John Hersey on Hiroshima; Ha Jin on Korea; Michael Herr … Continue reading

Posted in Arabic, Classics, collaboration, Contemporary novel, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Educational institutions, epic, Handwritten script, Islam, lyric, Media, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Sudan: George Clooney, Dave Eggers, Valentino Achak Deng

March 21, 2012 Last Friday George Clooney was arrested protesting the new humanitarian violations in Sudan. The Satellite Sentinel Project, which he co-founded with John Prendergast in October 2010, collects digital images analyzed by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and used … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, film medium, Global South, Islam, Media, print medium, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments