By Sarah Burke

Sadder Than Water: poems by Samih al-QasimMaps

Several years ago I traveled in Tunisia with a friend. We felt pretty cool: we avoided the resorts, took local transport, ate local food, practiced our languages. One day we rolled into a town by the edge of the Sahara that is the starting point of many coordinated journeys into the desert—camels, sunset over the dunes, dinner cooked on a fire, etc. We had compared the reviews of several tour agencies in Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, volumes stored like talismans in our respective backpacks. As we emerged from the shared van into this new town, a man approached us and began talking about the agency he represented. It was the best, he said, the number one agency for trips into the desert.

On January 31, 2009, Levantine Cultural Center and the University of California, Irvine, the Middle East Studies Student Initiative (MESSI) will present “Whither the Levant? The Crisis of the Nation-State: Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. This conference includes documentary and feature film screenings, panels and a symposium.

By Daphna Golan-Agnon

The two soldiers who aimed cocked rifles at me at the beginning of the week looked the same age as my students. When one of the soldiers' cell phones started ringing and he slung the rifle on his shoulder and told Rotem that he would call her back soon, I thought about his mother, who could have been my friend, and I asked myself what he tells her when he goes back home.

A conference including documentary and feature screenings, panels and symposium, organized by Levantine Cultural Center and the University of California, Irvine, the Middle East Studies Student Initiative (MESSI). Cosponsored by the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies/UCI, American Friends Service Committee, LA Jews for Peace and supported by Diane and Jeanette Shammas, Lawrence Joseph, Kanan Hamzeh, Casey Kasem, Bana Hilal, Asad Farah and the Salaam-Shalom Educational Foundation.

UC Irvine Student CenterThis conference takes place at the UC Irvine Student Center in the Crystal Cove Auditorium and Pacific Ballroom. [Map].

By Saree Makdisi


There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom and whether the Oslo peace process died when Yasser Arafat walked away from the bargaining table or whether it was Ariel Sharon's stroll through the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that did it in.

By Daphna Golan-Agnon

As the United States waits in anticipation for Barack Obama to take presidential office, Jerusalem waits for its own new leader, Nir Barkat, to assume his mayoral duties. The secular Barkat will be replacing the city's ultra-Orthodox mayor-and like Obama, he promises change.

The American Cinematheque and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association present a special double bill,the Swedish nominee, "EVERLASTING MOMENTS."2008,( IFC Films, SWEDEN/DENMARK, 131 min. Dir. Jan Troell ) screening at 7:30 pm, folowed by "Waltz With Bashir" at 9:30 pm. (For info on a roundtable with Ari Folman et al on Jan. 10, see below)

"Waltz With Bashir" (2008, Sony Pictures Classics, 90 min.) is a mesmerizing and gripping animated documentary—a hand-drawn chronicle of director Ari Folman's repressed memories of war. Folman, who also wrote and produced the film, describes the narrative this way:

 

By Jordan Elgrably

In the last days of 2008 and into 2009, even as Israeli military forces attack Gaza in an attempt to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel, a former Israeli soldier is presenting his animated war documentary to audiences around the world. The Gaza attack has resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths, but still the battle rages, with Hamas forces persisting.

Since the tragic events of 9/11, there has been an upsurge in ethnic comedy by Arabs/Muslims in America. More and more Arab/Muslim individuals and groups such as "Allah Made Me Funny," the "Sultans of Satire" and "Axis of Evil" are appearing on stage with comic routines and they are attracting larger and larger non-Muslim audiences. Paradoxically, a tragedy that triggered widespread Islamophobia in American society seems also to have opened the field for Arab/Muslim comedy.

This panel discussion and lecture series, sponsored by The Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania, will explore the landscape of American Middle Eastern ethnic comedy and its intricate relationship with Islamophobia.

Panel Members: Mucahit Bilici (Professor of Sociology at John Jay College-CUNY), Jordan Elgrably (Founder of Levantine Cultural Center, and the Sultans of Satire: Middle East Comic Relief) and Rahim Armat (of Kodoom.com, Cultural Events Search Engine).