Book Reading and Discussion: Moustafa Bayoumi, Max Blumenthal, Arun Gupta, Rashid Khalidi, on the Impact of the Gaza freedom Flotilla

Panel Discussion with Max Blumenthal, Moustafa Bayoumi, Arun Gupta, Adam Horowitz, Rashid Khalidi, Alia Malek and Phil Weiss on the Impact of Gaza Freedom Flotila Attack.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010
7:00 pm at Alwan for the Arts

Free and Open to the Public

This event is sponsored by OR Books and Haymarket Books and is a launch of the Haymarket Books (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/) edition.

Midnight on the Mavi Marmara
The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Moustafa Bayoumi, Editor

* * * * *

Eastern Mediterranean, Monday, May 31st, 2010, 4.30am: Israeli commandos, boarding from sea and air, attack the six boats of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it sails through international waters bringing humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Within minutes, nine peace activists are dead, shot by the Israelis. Scores of others are injured. The 700 people on board the ships are arrested before being transported to detention centers in Israel and then deported.

Within hours, outrage at Israel’s action echoes around the world. Spontaneous demonstrations in Europe, the United States, Turkey, and Gaza itself denounce the attack. Turkey’s prime minister describes it as a “bloody massacre” and “state terrorism.” Lebanon’s prime minister calls it “a dangerous and crazy step that will exacerbate tensions in the region.”

In these pages, a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night, unpicking their meanings for Israel’s illegal, three-year-long blockade of Gaza and the decades-long Israel/Palestine conflict more generally. Mixing together first-hand testimony, documentary record, and illustration, with hard-headed analysis and historical overview, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara reveals why the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla may just turn out to be Israel’s Selma, Alabama: the beginning of the end for an apartheid Palestine.

CONTRIBUTORS: Ali Abunimah, Eyad Al Sarraj, Lamis Andoni, Omar Barghouti, George Bisharat, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Marsha B. Cohen, Juan Cole, Murat Dagli, Jamal Elshayyal, Sümeyye Ertekin, Norman Finkelstein, Neve Gordon, Glenn Greenwald, Arun Gupta, Amira Hass, Nadia Hijab, Adam Horowitz, Rashid Khalidi, Stephen Kinzer, Iara Lee, Henning Mankell, Paul Larudee, Gideon Levy, Alia Malek, Lubna Masarwa, Mike Marqusee, Yousef Munayyer, Ken O’Keefe, Daniel Luban, Kevin Ovenden, Ilan Pappé, Doron Rosenblum, Sara Roy, Ben Saul, Adam Shapiro, Raja Shehadeh, Henry Siegman, Ahdaf Soueif, Raji Sourani, Richard Tillinghast, Alice Walker, Stephen M. Walt, Philip Weiss, and Haneen Zoabi.

Alwan for the Arts

16 Beaver Street (between Broad and Broadway), 4th floor,
New York, NY 10004
(646) 732-3261

CFP: The International Journal for Arab Studies

Next issue submission: Oct 31

The International Journal for Arab Studies is an electronic journal introduced by the Society of Arab & Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter (UK). We strive to publish foutstanding and unique research produced by young academics from around the world. Our eJournal will publish original, previously unpublished, work in both Arabic and English.

Through our website www.ijasjournal.com, and partner links www.sais-exeter.org.uk and www.globalinkinternational.com, we hope to expand our readership and access to the thousands of researchers with interest in the Arab World.

Our journal will be published twice a year. Our second issue, due out in January 2011, will establish both a broad audience and broad spectrum of contributors. We believe our eJournal will allow academics across disciplines the opportunity to discuss with our audience history and current affairs of Arab societies and the vital internal and external security issues of concerns. IJAS also welcomes Book Reviews.

Our deadline for submissions for this second issue will be 31 October 2010.

Contact: ijas.editor@gmail.com; submissions.ijas@gmail.com
URL: www.ijasjournal.com

The International Journal for Arab Studies is a refereed journal and aims to promote genuine research in the field of Arab studies. The multi-disciplinary nature of this journal includes the following fields: politics and International Relations, sociology, history, linguistics, literature and anthropology. The journal also is interested in theories relevant to these disciplines. Thus, the journal presents itself to a wide readership interested in Arab studies. This is only an electronic journal, yet we seek to produce hard copies once resources are available by 2011.

Our publication will cover articles, reviews of books and short articles on recent issues relevant to the theme of each issue. The working languages will be English and Arabic. Yet, articles will only be published in English during the first year of the establishment. The e-journal will be published three times a year; April, August and December where it will include seven articles and four book reviews. Review of publications in Arabic and English are also welcome.

The International Journal for Arab Studies seeks to make a strong link between scholarly work published in Arabic and English; hence the latter seems to be dominant over the former. Therefore, we welcome contributors from any backgrounds.

Other special events and issues will be announced on the e-journal website. The website itself will be a forum for academic discussions related to theme of the e-journal. The editorial board includes several scholars representing different universities in Europe, the US and the Middle East.

Editor in Chief
Dr. Khalid Almezaini
Fernando Carvajal (University of Exeter)
You will find our guidelines for articles and book reviews on our websitewww.ijasjournal.com.

Electronic submission is the only format accepted by IJAS. Please submit your manuscript to submissionsDOTijas@gmail.com

High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music Sept 23-26

High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music

Sound Installations:
September 21st - 26th, 2010
@ Gallery Four 4th Floor / 405 W Franklin St., Baltimore

Main Concerts:
September 23rd - 26th, 2010
@ The Theatre Project 45 W Preston St., Baltimore

What is High Zero?

High Zero is the premier festival of Improvised, Experimental music on the East Coast, being fully devoted to new collaborations between the most inspired improvisers from around the world.

Lasting two weeks in total, the festival brings together 28 core musicians each year, but also involves a much larger subculture of musicians in Baltimore and on the East Coast. Unlike many related festivals, High Zero is not narrow in terms of sensibility or subculture, but rather widely inclusive of all the different types of experimental music-making in the moment. The fact that half of the festival's core participants are from Baltimore speaks to the depth of Baltimore's experimental music subculture, which in recent years has grown to be one of the richest cities in the country for experimental art.

The festival has a unique structure. HIGH ZERO is focused solely on new collaborations in freely improvised experimental music. Internationally famous musicians play side by side with younger "unknowns," united by their commitment to the musical imagination. Each year, Baltimore becomes a fertile meeting-ground for a large group of inspired players, drawn from a fascinating international subculture.

The festival exposes large audiences to this radical music in its pure form. Large-scale public concerts, recording sessions, workshops, and guerilla street performances are all part of the heady mix. The players are carefully selected by the festival's organizers for their intense, unique music, whether it is based around dramatic intensity, humor, specially designed instruments, original approach, raw sound, or nearly superhuman instrumental technique. The resulting collaborations challenge the limits of music and delight by their audacity, expressiveness, immediacy, and innovation. It isn't about stars or established projects; it is about the most uncompromising and stimulating new improvised music we can bring together.

To say the High Zero Festival is an unusual event is an understatement. Not only does the festival intend to provide the audience with extremely varied, inspired and ingenious experiences, it is also a major challenge for the improvisers, who are put in contexts where their stock personal musical languages may not work, pushing them into terra incognita.

This year's festival again promises to be the best yet, with more performers and more music. We hope to see you at High Zero 2010, and hope that you will spread the word to anyone you think might be interested!

Directions to main High Zero concerts at:

Theatre Project
45 W Preston St.
Baltimore 21201

Performing Idea, Performance Matters

Adrian Heathfield, Co-Director of Performing Idea

Performing Idea public programme

2nd-9th October 2010
Whitechapel Gallery and Toynbee Studios, London

Performing Idea is a programme of events at Whitechapel Gallery and Toynbee Studios that investigate the shifting relations between performance practice and discourse, event and writing.

The public programme comprises a set of workshops led by three internationally acclaimed artists; a five day symposium with leading writers, thinkers and artists; a sound and video archive of seminal performance lectures; and a series of new performance lectures and redos by UK and international artists.

With contributions from: Janine Antoni, Ron Athey, Anne Bean, Wafaa Bilal, Maaike Bleeker, Silvia Bottiroli, Jonathan Burrows, Gavin Butt, Cabula 6, Augusto Corrieri, Robin Deacon, Rose English, Tim Etchells, Matthew Goulish, Adrian Heathfield, Hannah Hurtzig, Shannon Jackson, Janez Janša, Joe Kelleher, Tellervo Kalleinen, Lois Keidan, Ong Keng Sen, Bojana Kunst, Boyan Manchev, Fred Moten, Rabih Mroué, Giulia Palladini, Owen Parry, Peggy Phelan, Heike Roms, Lara Shalson, and Julie Tolentino.

To make a booking for the Performing Idea public programme click on How to book.

About Performing Idea

At a time when performance and live art have increased visibility in the worlds of art, theatre, dance and the academy, Performing Idea asks how such experimental performance forms signal changes in understandings of both art and the world beyond. The event pursues the multiple ways in which contemporary artists and thinkers have come to refashion not only understandings of art, but also the ways in which we produce and value the world of ‘ideas’.

Performing Idea seeks to explore the consequences for traditional understandings of knowledge when contemporary art actions, immaterial performances and social exchanges are routinely presented as valuable ways of knowing. What challenges do such practices present for the keepers, institutions and edifices of knowledge: the intellectuals and art arbiters, the academic institutions, and archives and libraries? Might the current forms of critical practice – of ‘creative research’ and ‘discursive events’ – represent new models of knowledge exchange and thoughtful relation, and suggest something more provisional and trans-active in the ways in which we might hold something dear?

Performing Idea is the first year of Performance Matters, a three-year creative research project rethinking why performance matters through the matter of performance. At a time when performance and live art have increased visibility in the worlds of art, theatre, dance and the academy, Performing Idea asks how such experimental performance forms signal changes in understandings of both art and the world beyond through a set of critical and creative exchanges and research processes.

For full details of the Performing Idea public programme and
information about the Performance Matters project, please visit:
http://www.thisisperformancematters.co.uk/activities.html

Bookings:
- The Performing Idea Symposium (5th to 9th October, 3pm to 7.30pm)
and evening programme of performance lectures and redos (4th to 9th October,
8.30pm) take place at Toynbee Studios and bookings must be made through Artsadmin
here.


Spaces are limited - early booking is advised.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow to Give Away New Album Digitally

Via Pitchfork:

MP3: A Sunny Day in Glasgow: "Drink drank drunk"

When they were working on their 2009 album Ashes Grammar, Philadelphia dream-poppers A Sunny Day in Glasgow wrote a ton of songs, not all of which made it onto the final album. Some of those songs made their way onto Nitetime Rainbows, the EP that the band released earlier this year. And still more make up Autumn, Again, a brand new album that the band will release in October. Up above, you can download the woozy album track "Drink drank drunk".

On October 19, the band will give away the album on their website as a free download. They'll also press up 500 vinyl copies of the album, which they'll sell on their website and through Carrot Top Distribution.

A press release pounds points out that this isn't a sign of any new directions that the band might take. Rather, it's another souvenir from a particularly fertile period. Below, we've got the Autumn, Again tracklist.

Autumn, Again:

01 Autumn, again
02 Fall in love
03 Petition to refrain from repetition
04 Sigh, inhibitionist (Come all day with me)
05 Moments on the lawn
06 Drink drank drunk
07 Violet Mary haunts me OR Loss of forgetfulness on Renfrew Street
08 How does somebody say when they like you?
09 Calling it love isn't love (Don't fall in love)
10 This assclown eats ambien OR Nobody likes you (No Art)
11 100/0 (Snowdays forever)

Hey Kids, Progressive Clichés!

Okay, here goes.

This summer I had an exchange with another blogger who'd tweeted something along the lines of "enough already, we all agree, America is NOT post-racial... can we move on now?" I love a cranky, self-aware tweet and I told him so. (For me this is the genius of Twitter: for every meaningless kernel of trivia that floats along the data-stream there is a shiny pearl, excellent for its brevity. The 140 character limit makes good writers better by forcing them to be brief and it keeps bad writers from going on for too long. In my book this is a win-win.) His point was that the "we are not post-racial" drumbeat had become meaningless through constant use and was perhaps taking the place of more substantive discussions about race. I'd thought the same thing but hadn't known how to articulate it... Not so much a meme as a punchline, it stops conversations rather than opening them. In other words, "America is not post-racial" is a progressive cliché .

This brief conversation really made me think and I realized that there are a lot of tropes like this clogging up the discourse, making us ("us" = folks who write critically about various systems of oppression like racism, orientalism, sexism, etc. etc.) lazy. I considered writing a series of essays on these progressive clichés, but I hesitated. The self-imposed pressure to "keep it in the family " and not give the Right, who have become simultaneously more vicious and media-savvy in the last decade, more ammunition is strong. And kyriarchy--the ways in which we oppress each other--worries me. I don't want to inadvertently contribute to the systems of oppression I am trying to critique vertically or horizontally. And of course, while "America is Not Post-Racial" is a cliché, it is also true.

The problem, as I see it, isn't that such statements aren't true, but with how they are used. Like comedians who pander to the audience to get them on his side, the ultimate effect of this language is reactionary. There is no there there. But... does it make sense to criticize people for saying something that is true, especially when they/we are under constant attack from the Right? Don't people have the right to just vent--even if the ultimate effect is reactionary? It seems to make more sense to just leave it alone, grit my teeth and complain to my friends who will understand where I'm coming from.

And yet... I can't seem to let go of this idea.

I returned to Twitter and asked my feed: What do yo think? And the response was overwhelmingly positive. (What's more, suggestions for other progressive clichés started pouring in. Like "Check Your Privilege", "The 'Insert-Bad-Thing-Here' Industrial Complex", "How To Be A True Ally" etc. etc. ... special thanks to @monshiprose). Self-selecting Twitter hive-mind notwithstanding, it seems I am not the only one frustrated with these intellectual non-starters. Huh. Okay then.

So I have decided to forge ahead.

I suppose it comes down to this: I don't believe that the best way to deal with overwhelming opposition from the Right is to prevent ourselves from holding each other accountable to do better. But I do believe that if we have any chance at all to contribute (for lack of a better term) progressive ideals to a larger social conversation we can't let the Right turn us into a self-silencing monolith in the name of solidarity. Agreeing in principle doesn't mean we can't disagree--productively--about the whys and wherefores. And/or even about the hows. Right? There must be a way to critique the usefulness of certain arguments without attacking the people who articulate them, as a way of lifting the level of the discourse for all of us. Right?

So. All of that is the long way around to say that I am announcing a series of posts on "progressive clichés." I don't expect everyone to support the idea or agree with the way I present it, but I think one of the strengths of this format is its immediacy. So if you question what I propose with these posts then speak up. I'll happily hear you out. And if you have clichés of your own to propose, let me know.

More soon.

Book Reading: "Masculine Identity in the Fiction of the Arab East Since 1967"

Samira Aghacy

Alwan for the Arts

16 Beaver Street (between Broad and Broadway), 4th floor,
New York, NY 10004
(646) 732-3261

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
7:00pm

Free and Open to the Public

While Western scholars and media notoriously scrutinize the role of women and feminine identity in Arab literature and culture, Samira Aghacy's new book is groundbreaking in exploring masculinity and male identity in Arab literature over the past four decades.

This book offers an exploration of masculinity in the literature of the Arab East (Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq) in the context of a specific set of anxieties about gender roles and sexuality in Arab societies. While gender studies in the area have focused primarily on the situation of women, the treatment of Arab men as gendered subjects has fallen behind. Samira Aghacy’s rich analysis presents gender relations not within a fixed biological mold, but rather as a complex phenomenon fraught with ambivalence and operating within particular historical and geopolitical settings.

Through a series of close readings of twenty contemporary Arabic novels, Aghacy presents a mosaic of masculinities that challenges the generally held view of an essentialized archetypal Arab man and mirrors a contested vision of manliness where men figure in diverse sociocultural environments. This groundbreaking work reveals the volatile nature of masculinity and its inextricability from femininity.

Samira Aghacy had her M.A. and Ph.D in English from the University of Exeter, England. She joined L.A.U. as Associate Professor in 1987. She was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1993. She chaired the Humanities Division between 1991 and 2003. In October 2003, she was appointed Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Aghacy has also taught at the University of Jordan, the Lebanese University and A.U.B. She has published a Bibliography and a book of poems as well as various articles in International literary journals and has participated in numerous international conferences.