Deconstructing stereotypes: Jack G. Shaheen remembers 40 years
of commitment to positive Arab and US
understanding in evening lecture

[Monday December 10, 2012] On Wednesday December 19th, The Levantine Cultural Center presents honored media critic and film scholar Dr. Jack G. Shaheen in an intimate discussion and forum on misleading stereotypes based on Hollywood's negative portrayal of Arabs. Shaheen will be discussing his life-long commitment to illuminate social justice, with insights into the highs and lows of his 40-year quest, including his mission to reveal and terminate these damaging Arab and Muslim stigmas.

WHO: Jack G. Shaheen, media activist
WHERE: Levantine Cultural Center, 5998 W. Pico Blvd., LA 90035, street parking.
PRICE: Free to general public
INFO/RSVPs: Levantine Cultural Center, 323.413.2001, levantinecenter.org.

[Los Angeles-Monday November 27, 2012] Beginning Saturday, December 1st, the Levantine Cultural Center presents a fascinating new exhibit based on the work of film and media scholar Dr. Jack G. Shaheen's work: A is for Arab: Stereotypes in U.S. Popular Culture.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Oct 18 2012 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door
$40 with a signed book.
Students with I.D., $10
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Iman Cultural Center
3376 Motor Ave., Los Angeles CA 90034
Parking lot, street parking

Vijay Mahajan, Ph.D., visited 18 Arab nations for his book that reveals a vibrant, bustling place full of commerce and consumers hungry for goods of almost every kind.

BEYOND "ARAB SPRING" & "ARAB RAGE"
VIJAY MAHAJAN FINDS THRIVING ARAB MARKET
OF 350 MILLION CONSUMERS
THU, OCT. 18, 2012, 7 PM

"...what really makes the book is its immediacy. The author is not afraid to get his boots dirty. His research took him to...areas where foreigners do not normally go, such as south Beirut. He spoke not only to business leaders but also to ordinary people in the streets and shops." —LA Times

By Omid Arabian, Film Editor

The 15th annual Arab Film Festival made its way from the San Francisco area to Los Angeles for the fourth time on the weekend of October 21, bringing a wide range of narrative and documentary features and shorts. While much of the hoopla revolved around the opening night and centerpiece film (Mohamed Amin's Egyptian Maidens) as well as epics like Rachid Bouchareb's Outside the Law, other films played to smaller but equally enthusiastic audiences.

By Naif Al-Mutawa

Last weekend, millions of Americans (and I) tuned in to watch the premiere of the sixth season of Showtime's Dexter. The show's protagonist is a serial killer who follows a personal code of harming only those who have harmed others. Fans of the show identify with him, wondering who his next victim will be and hoping he doesn't get caught by the police.

By Stephen Rohde

At the center of last summer's overheated controversy that became misleadingly known as the "Ground Zero Mosque" was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, now on a national speaking tour including a stop in Los Angeles at Royce Hall on May 4th, 2011.

Newt Gingrich compared Rauf and other supporters of the Muslim community center and mosque, to be built several blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, to "Nazis" who have no "right to put up a sign next to the holocaust museum in Washington."

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Oct 22 2010 6:30pm - Oct 24 2010 10:00pm

Price: 

$15 general admission (reception 6:30 pm, film at 8)

Where: 

Writers Guild of America
135 S. Doheny Drive
Beverly Hills CA 90211
parking across the street $3 after 6 pm

 

A scene from "Masquerades"The 14th annual Arab Film Festival, celebrating its fourth year in Los Angeles, will open with a feature film by Lyes Salem (Algeria 2008, 90 min). "Masquerades" was Algeria's 2009 official entry for the 2009 Academy Awards, and winner of many prestigious awards including Best Feature at the Dubai International Film Festival, and Best Arabic Film at the Cairo International Film Festival.

All-access pass to films Fri-Sun is $65. Purchase online here.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 20 2010 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Price: 

$40 in advance, $45 at the door ($36 members with advance RSVP)
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
Street parking
Located equidistant between Fairfax and La Cienega

a creative writing workshop

Levantine Cultural Center & The Writing Studio present Writing for Peace: War, Peace & the Path to Freedom. This workshop in creative writing with Elana Golden is for new and experienced writers—limited to 10 participants.

Turning wounds into literature is an act of self-preservation, self-discovery—a journey toward personal and global healing and peace. Elana Golden is a Los Angeles writer and teacher who works and corresponds with Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. She has taught creative writing at Levantine Cultural Center for  the past two years. She has worked with new and established writers from many countries, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and the United States.

Whether among nations, classes or families, the workshop provides a peaceful, respectful and inspiring space in which to write stories born of war, conflict or occupation. The skills of creative writing will be taught and explored, as well as effective methods to put aside the critical mind.

By Tamim Ansary

Review by Tara Marie Good

A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes: your purchase benefits in part Levantine Cultural CenterIn 1940 Walter Benjamin wrote, "To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize ‘how it really was.' It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger." For the German-Jewish Marxist philosopher that moment of danger was the Nazi march on Europe. The moment of danger that inspired Afghani born Tamim Ansary to articulate Islamic history in Destiny Disrupted was September 11th.

Destiny Disrupted is a historical narrative of the Islamic world addressing the chasm seen to separate Western and Middle Eastern histories. The main thesis presented by Ansary is that the history of Islam and the West are two parallel histories, which overlap at points, but are fundamentally separate. Claiming to represent a general Muslim perception, Ansary charts Middle Eastern history from the ancient world to the western colonial and economic expansion in the modern era.