 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|
|||||
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|
GuideStar: the leading source of information on
U.S. nonprofits.
|
|
|
Hold Your Workshops, Classes & Seminars at Levantine Cultural Center. Call 310.657.5511. Event Rentals |
|
|
|
|
 Iraqi-American Playwright and Actor Heather Raffo and Her One-Woman Show, "Nine Parts of Desire," Are the Talk of New York and Los Angeles |
|
|
Articles of Note
Palestinian Samia Dodin Talks to Israeli Sami Shalom Chetrit Lian Ensemble Concert Review Turkish news: Snow—the new novel by Orhan Pamuk Can Jews/Arabs Make Peace Through Music? By Ghada Karmi In Search of Fatima—a review of Ghada Karmi's memoir "Heart" of Arab Music by Jim Motavalli Persians on the Pacific by Tara Bahrampour Tariq Ali On Poetry In Turbulent Times in the Mideast (audio) |
|
|
Al-Andalus to Jerusalem:
Levantine Festival at the John Anson Ford  Al-Andalus with Tariq Banzi, Julie Banzi and flamenco dancer Ana Montes Click Here To Read Three Articles on the Concert |
|
 |
|
 March
9 (Sun), 3-6 pm—Al-Andalus to Jerusalem: A Poetry Tour With MacArthur
Fellow Peter Cole From Medieval Spain to Contemporary Israel/PalestineClick here for printable flyer. 
About Peter Cole:“A literary translator of the first order, Peter Cole…gives us a sterling work of translation of unsurpassed scope, quality and importance.”—Ross Brann, Cornell University “Cole’s translations … shimmer: they convey the power and mystique of the original.”—Choice “Cole’s translations constitute a tour de force….In the secular poems…he demonstrates his abilities to make contemporary poetry of very old materials….In the devotional poetry, he brings the entire arsenal of his poetic tact and ear to making spiritual experience real—even to the least ‘religious’ reader.”—Ha’aretz Peter Cole has published two collections of poetry, Rift (Station Hill) and Hymns & Qualms (Sheep Meadow Press); a third volume, What Is Doubled: Poems 1981-1989, was recently published by Shearsman Books in the UK. Cole has worked intensively on Hebrew literature, with special emphasis on medieval Hebrew poetry. In 1988 he started the ambitious project of translating into English texts by Shmuel HaNagid, whose lyrical work had always been considered untranslatable. Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, published by Princeton U. Press (1996), received the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for Translation. Cole was granted a TLS translation award for Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, also by Princeton U. Press (2001), an equally challenging translation of the philosopher, poet, and mystic, who was a younger contemporary of Shmuel HaNagid. Cole’s prize-winning translations of the Hebrew Golden Age poets have helped to recreate for contemporary American readers the multifaceted world of medieval Spain, in which Jewish artistic and intellectual communities flourished under Islamic rule. His new anthology, The Dream of the Poem, traces the arc of the entire period and reveals this remarkable poetic world in all of its richness, humor, grace, gravity, and wisdom. By far the most potent and comprehensive gathering of medieval Hebrew poems ever assembled in English, Cole’s anthology builds on what poet and translator Richard Howard has already described as “the finest labor of poetic translation that I have seen in many years” and “an entire revelation: a body of lyric and didactic verse so intense, so intelligent, and so vivid that it appears to identify a whole dimension of historical consciousness previously unavailable to us.” Among Cole’s translations from contemporary Hebrew and Arabic poetry and fiction are also Love & Selected Poems of Aharon Shabtai (Sheep Meadow), J’Accuse, by Aharon Shabtai (New Directions), So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971-2005 by Taha Muhammad Ali (Copper Canyon Press), The Collected Poems of Avraham Ben Yitzhak (Ibis) and The Shunra and the Schemetterling, by Yoel Hoffmann (New Directions). Cole has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 1998 Modern Language Association Translation Award. J’Accuse received the 2004 PEN-America Award for Poetry in Translation. He was a visiting fellow at Yale University’s Whitney Center for the Humanities in the fall of 2006. Cole is also the founder and co-editor of Ibis Editions, a small press devoted to the publication of Levant-related literature. Cole was born in Paterson/New Jersey, USA, in 1957. He began studying Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1981, and has since divided his time between Israel and the United States. Click here for printable flyer. Read a review of The Dream of the Poem in the New York Review of Books: Watch a video segment from NewsHouse: Engaging Language Through Translation (on the right hand side of the webpage): Levantine Center at Pacific Arts Center, 10469 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90025 (just west of Beverly Glen). Street parking. Seating limited, advance reservations suggested. $25, $20 members/students (registration at the door contingent on availability). Book by phone, 310.657.5511 or online.
|
||
| Volunteer with Levantine Cultural Center's
Programming Committee
Bring your ideas, enthusiasm and support to the Center by participating in our Programming Committee, which cooperates with our Board of Directors in creating new arts programs in the months ahead. Visit our volunteer opportunities page. To get on the reservation list for the next meeting, email us now! |
||
| Levantine Cultural Center Seeks Community
Leaders
Levantine Center's Board of Directors is continually seeking to work with new volunteers who may be invited to join the board. We welcomes inquiries—we are actively searching for more people with our passion and conviction! Our core group of volunteers consists of diverse members of the community who are of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean heritage or who have a strong professional or artistic interest in furthering our mission. Our volunteers work on literary, film, fine art, music and educational programming. Our Advisory Board is also in formation. Advisory board members
are known professionally in their own communities and offer valuable
counsel and services to the organization; they are eligible to attend
the organization's annual retreat and receive other benefits. |
||
| Submit your calendar listings to our calendar editor now. | ||
| To subscribe to our listserve and receive our special updates (which
include free ticket giveaways, articles and more), either visit our
Sign-up page or send a message to: subscribe@levantinecenter.org
and include Subscribe Me in the subject box. Be sure to give us your
first and last name and how you heard about us!
To join/support Levantine Cultural Center, simply go to our membership page and fill in the blanks, use your credit card, or print and mail in your check for $60 or $120 or $250 annual membership dues to: Levantine Center, 1012 S. Robertson Blvd., Suite C, Los Angeles CA 90035-1537. |
||
| LEVANTINE CULTURAL CENTER Cultures of the Middle East & Mediterranean 1012 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90035 310.657.5511/657.5522, info@levantinecenter.org |
||
| Founded in 2001, Levantine Cultural Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for, educates about, and in general promotes and supports Middle Eastern and Mediterranean contemporary arts and traditional cultures. We present or cosponsor programs of music, literature, art, film/video, publications, new media and more, often from educational and historical perspectives. While acknowledging the value of entertainment, we emphasize scholarship and substance. We are strongly multidisciplinary and non-sectarian, do not embrace any political or religious doctrine, and are committed to the principle of cross-cultural cooperation. We support the strengthening of ties between all cultural, ethnic and religious communities of the Middle East/West Asia/Levant, as well as between all peoples of Middle Eastern descent in diaspora. | ||
| See what Levantine Center has been up to and take note of other recent cultural events. |