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).

By Crystal Allene Cook

Read about the "Art Knows No Borders" event on November 18, 2008.

Arriving in Yerevan, Armenia on a Fulbright in 2004 to research a novel, I had some specific things in mind. Once on the ground, making friends, talking to people, traveling, many of my preconceived notions of those things, and of myself, soon began to change.

No Borders: by Anna-Marie Lopez de LeonThis eclectic event benefitting Doctors Without Borders includes a silent art auction with work by dozens of contributing artists including Anna-Marie Lopez de Leon, and performances by the Middle Eastern-jazz fusion group Saffron Parade Arabesque Band, Tehran’s heavy metal band TarantisT, belly dancers, deejays and much more. Pic Vicious and Killsonic will perform later in the soirée.

From October 24-26 in Hollywood, Arpa International Film Festival will screen 50 films from 21 nations, including Armenia, Australia, Canada, China, Congo, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tobago, Trinidad, Turkey, UK, and Venezuela.

Arpa International Film Festival, which goes green in 2008, is produced by Arpa Foundation for Film, Music, and Art (AFFMA), a non-profit organization dedicated to artists exploring identity, multi-culturalism, war, exile, genocide and global empathy.

The Silk Road Music & Dance Ensemble and the iST-West Ensemble will perform live with special guest vocalist Serpil Borazan. Featuring Rowan Storm on percussions, with Nyofu Tyson on saz, Neil Seigel on Azeri tar, Ergun Tamer on kanun and Robyn Friend performing dances of Turkey and Central Asia, plus additional musicians.

Language for a New Century: your purchase benefits LCC programmingKudos to Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. This handsome new anthology (Norton 2008) celebrates the artistic and cultural forces flourishing today in the East—gathering an unprecedented selection of works by East Asian, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Central Asian poets as well as poets living in the diaspora. The volume is organized around nine themes—including childhood, politics and oppression, identity, war, homeland and love—and includes more than 400 unique voices from 59 countries. Each section of the anthology—organized by theme rather than national affiliation—is preceded by a personal essay from the editors that introduces the poetry and invokes the readers to examine their own identities in light of these powerful poems.

An exhibit by Ara Oshagan at the The Center for Experimental Art and Architecture through October 17, 2008

Born in Beirut of Armenian heritage, with his degrees in Physics and English Literature from UCLA and a degree in Geophysics from UC Berkley, by day Ara Oshagan is a geophysicist and at other times an accomplished documentary photographer. Scion of Armenian poets, writers and educators, Oshagan is also an avowed novelist manqué who uses photography to narrate his community’s stories—or in the case of “Identity and Community”—interwoven Armenian and Ethiopian narratives. With “three skeletons of novels in my head,” nearly a decade ago he began taking photography to a higher level and has held several solo and group exhibits.

Yes: your purchase benefits LCC programming"Yes" from director Sally Potter is the story of a passionate love affair between an American woman (Joan Allen) and a Middle Eastern man (Simon Abkarian) in which they confront some of the greatest conflicts of our generation—religious, political and sexual. Sam Neill plays the betrayed and betraying politician husband, Sheila Hancock the beloved aunt and Shirley Henderson the philosophical cleaner who witnesses the trail of dirt and heartbreak the lovers leave behind them, as they embark on a journey that takes them from London and Belfast to Beirut and Havana.

Compelled by post 9/11 "urgency, impotence, helplessness, and [the] need to do something with [cinema]," as Potter says, she began writing "Yes" as an "argument, East and West, but between two individuals who are in love—a man from the Middle East and a woman from the West—and have them speak out about their respective states of anguish."

By Lucy Der-Tavitian

My dear friend Bianca decided to move to Kuwait and open an all-American breakfast spot; she was a bit bored with Los Angeles and Kuwait seemed as good of an option as anywhere else.

I met Bianca when I was living in Armenia. She had decided to go Armenia to reconnect with her father’s roots.

By Mariette Tachdjian

A tantrum of drums and congas opened the first set of the Armenian Navy Band’s performance at the Disney Concert Hall on a warm Friday night in August. The heavy percussion was followed by traditional Armenian and Turkish instruments interlaced with a brass section, which then birthed their way through the original, but sometimes chaotic arrangements.

The humorously named Navy band—Armenia is surrounded by land—pushes folk music to a new level. Founded and fronted by Arto Tuncboyaciyan—a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist with appealing, eco-conscious messages—the band creates symphonic arrangements by stuffing as many sounds as possible into long, drawn out, percussively heavy sets. But rather than being concert-friendly, the music is more worthy of film scores as it perfectly blends layers of ancient sounds with elements of Latin jazz, African beats and Armenian/Turkish melodies. The band’s innovative arrangements won the 2006 BBC World Music Planet Audience Award. They have been on the Armenian music scene since 1998.