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.

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].

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).

Roles for Arab/Muslim Actors in Film and TelevisionEven as the United States finds itself increasing enmeshed in the Arab/Muslim world politically, Hollywood exports a great deal of film and television programs watched in the Middle East. We are indeed the dominant cultural force in many Arab/Muslim countries. Meanwhile, Americans are finding more and more Arab/Muslim characters in their film and TV programming…

Read Andrew Gumbel's L.A. Weekly feature, Arab Adventures in Hollywood.

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR SHORT FILMS
Short-shorts and shorts: docs and features: 1m-15ms

After decades of war in the post-colonial Middle East, statesmen and women of the region—particularly the battle-fatigued Israelis-have finally understood something about war and peace that most of us have known all along: there is no military solution to our problems. Lines will be drawn and peace will be achieved through negotiated agreements—or there will be no lasting peace for anyone...

Ya gary gary elwo7oosh Gheir naseebak lan te7oosh

Literally: You who runs with monsters, other than your fate you will not meet.

Figuratively: Those who get caught up in big dreams will still receive what they were meant to receive, meeting only disappointment.

Matgeesh gheir fe teez el erd we teshim

Literally:  Why come to the monkey's butt and sniff it?

Figuratively: Someone who is self destructive, or who constantly chooses something of lesser value out of a line-up of "better" options.

3amil zay el ar3 betmidel bara

Literally: You are like pumpkins, your roots reach outwards

Figuratively: To call someone disloyal, or referring to someone who helps others but not their own family and close friends.

By Yasmine El-Rashidi

Cairo’s streets have always been sad. I have spent years traversing them, getting lost and familiar with alleyways littered with paper, saturated with smells and colors and a conflict of noise. Mothers and daughters call down to the greengrocers to fill their dangling baskets with goods. Young boys shout randomly into the hollow of the maze of buildings. Conversations take place across alleys, from balconies, from windows. Recipes are exchanged, news is shared, the call to prayer resonates. Sellers of all sorts call out the isms of slogans and sounds that make Cairo’s streets familiar to those who live them. Television filters out from every floor and the voracity of traffic chimes in with consistency. It is a commotion of life that I have perhaps only experienced to such intensity in India, where the air is inflated with ebullience and vivid colors appear to stream from the city’s pores of windows and doorways. In India there is exuberance. In Cairo, however, it feels quite different.

The artwork for the New LATC's "Jihad Jones" productionWhether or not Arabs and Arab Americans are represented in their genuine diversity in Hollywood films and television remains an open question—one which author Jack Shaheen, to be sure, has addressed in his book (and eponymous documentary) Reel Bad Arabs. As well, a number of recent forums in Los Angeles have looked at just how Arabs/Muslims are depicted in film/TV. [Levanine Cultural Center, SAG and MPAC will present a roundtable on the topic in January 2009, “Broadening the Scope, Roles for Arab/Muslim Actors in Film/TV”; we invite you to stay tuned or sign up to receive our email blasts.]

By Yussef El-Guindi

I’ve come to the decision that I don’t much care to be an Arab anymore. No, I don’t think I do. I think I’m going to disintegrate this whole contraption of race consciousness, this accident of time and place that had me born in a particular area (an undemocratic a process, I must say, being born.—I do hope that with the development of genetic engineering that some way may be found to allow the budding citizen to opt out or request a transfer); with the resultant effect that being born an Arab I find myself continually having to juggle pride—that sniveling little pride with all its hoarding tendencies—and abject states of humiliation; and doing so with the regular, and annoying, certainty of a person droning on and on about one complaint after another until you think the only solution for the person is to just lie down and die.