Past Events:
Public Lecture: Love, Fear, Anger, Sorrow: Diseases of the Soul in "Islamicate" Literature
Sometime before the turn of the 8th century AD, the ruling Caliph of the Islamic world at the time, ʿAbdalmalik b. Marwān, summoned one of his court poets named Arṭāt b. Suhayya. “Will you be composing any poetry today?” asked the Caliph. “My God, how can I?” Arṭāt the poet answered. “I’m not feeling bittersweet, I’m not angry, I’m not drinking, and I don’t feel longing for anything. Poetry proceeds only from one of these four states.”
This short anecdote and others like it are the basis of this lecture, which shows how literature, art, philosophy, history, religion—in other words, the humanities in general—are all about people making sense of their experiences, most especially of their emotions. Or as W.H. Auden said of poetry, they are “the clear expression of mixed feelings.” Together, we will explore how and why this happens in the literatures of the Islamic world.
Kevin Blankinship is an assistant professor at Brigham Young University, where he teaches Arabic and Islamic Studies. His research is about classical Arabic literature, and he is now writing a book about animals in the works of 11th-century satirist, moralist, and witty man of letters al-Ma`arri. Dr. Blankinship’s work has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Independent Research Fund Denmark, and the University of Utah. He is also a contributing editor at New Lines Magazine and has written for popular press venues like The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Foreign Policy.
Professor Blankinship will give his lecture Monday, December 4 at 5:00pm in Stone Auditorium in the Woldenberg Art Building, followed by a catered reception. This event is sponsored by the Middle East & North African Studies Program and the Medieval & Early Modern Studies Program, with funding from the Center for Scholars.
MENA Film Night: The Blue Caftan
Thursday, November 9, 2023, 6:00pm
Newcomb Hall 308
The Blue Caftan, directed by Maryam Touzani (2022) is the haunting story of Halim and Mina, who run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco's oldest medinas. In order to keep up with the commands of the demanding customers, they hire a young man named Youssef; slowly, Mina realizes how much her husband is moved by the presence of the young man.
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and was chosen to represent Morocco in the 2023 Oscars shortlist in the "International Feature Film" category.
The screening will be moderated by PhD student Emilie Hautemont with a Q&A afterwards.
Jack of all trades; Master of none! A Lecture by Ali Behdad (UCLA)
October 30, 6 pm
Stone Auditorium
This reflexive talk addresses the challenges of engaging in literary studies in an era marked by the expansion of the literary globe. It argues that there is a value in viewing the work of literary comparison as a form of scholarly amateurism that embraces intellectual mobility and shuns specialization that academic institutions often valorize. It elaborates a model of literary scholarship that is critical towards the narrowness of disciplinary formation and the lure of mastery that comes with the cult of expertise.
Ali Behdad is John Charles Hillis Chair in Literature, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and the Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA. He has published widely on issues of travel, immigration, Orientalism, photography, and Postcolonialism, including three books, Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Duke University Press, 1994), A Forgetful Nation: On Immigration and Cultural Identity in the United States (Duke University Press, 2005), and Camera Orientalis: Reflections on photography of the Middle East (U. of Chicago Press, 2016) He is also the co-editor of A Companion to Comparative Literature (Blackwell, 2011) and Photography’s Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation (Getty Research Institute, 2013).
Sponsored by Tulane School of Liberal Arts
Edging Toward Iberia: Theory and Practice. A Symposium honoring Jean Dangler
Tuesday, October 27 2023, 9:00-4:15
Jones Hall 100A • Greenleaf Conference Room Tulane University
Co-sponsored with the Center for Scholars of the School of Liberal Arts, the Newcomb Institute, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and Medieval & Early Modern Studies at Tulane University.
MENA Film Night: Wanderers of the Desert
Monday, Oct 23, 2023, 6:00 PM
Newcomb Hall 404
Evocative and mysterious, Wanderers of the Desert (Les Baliseurs du désert), directed by Nacer Khémir, captures southern Tunisia in a near-mythological form. A young teacher arrives to take over a remote village school isolated in the desert to find that there is no school, only disparate talk of the “wanderers,” a group of men from the village who left, and now spend their lives walking the desert, singing in unison. In the village, the young teacher discovers a singular and unreal world, where magic and reality intertwine.
The screening will be moderated by PhD student Carolina McPhail with a Q&A afterwards.
MENA Film Night: Babam ve Oglum (My Father and My Son)
Tuesday, October 3 2023, 6:00 PM
Newcomb Hall 403
Please join the Middle East North African Studies Program for the first film in the 2023-2024 MENA Film Night Series, Babam ve Oglum (My Father and my son), 2005. Directed by Çağan Irmak, the film tells the story of how the family of a left-wing journalist is torn apart after the 1980 military coup in Turkey.
The screening will be moderated by Professor Esra Özcan with a Q&A afterwards.
“Made of Smokeless Fire,” an exhibition by Camille Farrah Lenain
Monday, April 24 – Friday, May 19
Newcomb Hall Third Floor Hallway
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair in French Studies
“Feu Sans Fumée” (Made Of Smokeless Fire) is an exploration of LGBTQIA+ identities within Muslim culture in France. This project is an homage to my uncle Farid who passed away in 2013. Without the ability to speak with him, I turned towards other people carrying these plural identities, often underrepresented and misunderstood.
- Camille F Lenain
MENA Studies Film Night: The Law in these Parts (dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
Tuesday, April 25, 6 pm, Newcomb Hall 403
Dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
In Hebrew with English subtitles
Followed by a Q&A with Ari Ofengenden
Contact: Ari Ofengenden (aofengenden@tulane.edu)
Abdellah Taia: “Salvation Army.” Film Screening and Q&A with Abdellah Taia.
Monday, April 24, 5 pm
Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
Calvert Jones (University of Maryland)
Thursday, April 20, 2 PM: Norman Mayer, Room 118
Corrupt State or Corrupt Society? Strategic Contexts of Corruption and Political Culture Outcomes.
Contact: Andrew Leber (aleber@tulane.edu)
Co-sponsored with the Department of Political Science
Debarati Sanyal (University of California-Berkeley): “The dark background of mere givenness': Refugee Kino-aesthetics and Politics”
Thursday, April 20, 5 pm
Newcomb Hall 403
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies
Contact: Oana Sabo (osabo@tulane.edu) and Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
Detlef Haberland (University of Oldenburg): “European Views of Persepolis (1618-1811)–What Historical Travelogues Can Tell us Today”
April 19, 5:30
Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center
Co-sponsored with Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
Contact: Elio Brancaforte (ebranca@tulane.edu)
Paraska Tolan (Suffolk College): “Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future”
Monday, April 10, 5 pm
Newcomb Hall 403
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
Siham Bouamer (University of Cincinnati): “Unpacking Lyautey's Moroccan Library: French Women's Colonial Travel Writing as World Literature?”
March 24, 3 pm
Newcomb Hall 403
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies
Contact: Emilie Hautemont (ehautemont@tulane.edu)
MENA Studies Film Night: “The Swimmers” (2022)
Tuesday, March 14, 6 pm
Newcomb Hall 308
Dir. Sally El Hosaini
In English and Arabic with English subtitles
Followed by a Q & A with Tulane Global Visiting Scholar Islam Elrabieey
Contact: Islam Elrabieey (iahmed@tulane.edu)
Global Café, sponsored by MENA Studies and Arabic Studies
Join us for Middle Eastern food, music, debka dancing, henna tattoos, calligraphy, and more!
Tuesday, March 7, 2-4
LBC, Rosenberg Mezzanine
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
MENA Studies Film Night: “The Kite-Runner” (2007).
Tuesday, February 28, 6 pm
Newcomb Hall 308
Dir. Marc Forster
Based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini
In Dari, Pashtu, Urdu, and English with English subtitles
Followed by a Q & A with Tulane Global Visiting Scholar Mariam Taqaddusi
Contact: Mariam Taqaddusi (mtaqaddusi@tulane.edu)
Islam Elrabieey (Tulane Global Visiting Scholar, Tulane University): "Fighting Imagination: Why Egypt's Political Regime Continues to Target Political Activists and Human Rights Defenders"
Monday, February 27, 5 pm
Newcomb Hall 403
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
Mariam Taqaddusi (Tulane Global Visiting Scholar, Tulane University): “Challenges Facing Women in Afghanistan”
Thursday, February 23, 5 pm
Newcomb Hall 403
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu)
Esra Almas (Bilkent University, Ankara) and Jack Kugelmass (University of Florida) “‘The Club’ (Netflix series): Greeks, Jews and the Demise of a Multicultural Istanbul”
Tuesday, January 17, 12 pm.
Jewish Studies Building, Conference Room 103, 7031 Freret St.
Co-sponsored by Jewish Studies
Contact: horowitz@tulane.edu
2022 Conflict and Cooperation in Jerusalem: An online exhibition Organized by the Mandel Palagye Program for Middle East Peace
Fall Semester 2022: Online
Conflict and Coexistence in Jerusalem. Research from the 2022 Mandel-Palagye Summer Program for Middle East Peace. Tulane students in the Stacy Mandel Palagye and Keith Palagye Program for Middle East Peace spent five weeks this past summer studying the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict through classroom study and hands-on experience in Jerusalem.
Driss Ksikes “Les Sentiers de l’Indiscipline”
Monday, December 5, 5:30
LBC 202 (Rechler Conference Room)
Co-sponsored by the School of Liberal Arts, Department of French and Italian.
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu).
Labor Rights, Qatar, and the World Cup
Thursday, December 1, 12 noon
Online
A conversation with Vani Saraswathi and Roula Seghaier moderated by Andrew Leber.
12 years after it was awarded to Qatar, the 2022 World Cup continues to attract considerable media attention over the treatment of non-citizen labor in the host country. Accusations that Qatar’s “kafala” labor-sponsorship system still amounts to “modern slavery” have been met by counter-claims that Qatar is being unfairly singled out for international human-rights criticism, both compared to past hosts such as Russia and to neighboring Gulf monarchies that rely on similar labor policies. In this event, we are joined by experienced advocates for migrant workers in the MENA region to understand just how Qatar has (and has not) reformed its labor laws under the spotlight of global media attention.
- Vani Saraswathi is an experienced journalist based in the GCC who has covered human rights stories for decades. She is the Editor-at-Large and Director of Projects at Migrant-Rights.org, a news portal and advocacy organization for migrant labor rights in the MENA region.
- Roula Seghaier is an experienced community organizer in the MENA region and an award-winning novelist. She is currently the Strategic Program Coordinator at the International Domestic Workers Federation.
Contact: Andrew Leber (aleber@tulane.edu)
Arab and Mediterranean Cuisine and Music Event
Friday, November 4th, 1:00 – 3:30 pm
Audubon Park, Shelter 25
Don't miss out on some great food and some great tunes!
Contact: Khedidja Boudaba (kboudaba@tulane.edu)
MENA Studies Film Night: "Persepolis" (2007)
November 3rd, 6:00 pm: NH 308
Dir. Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud
Based on the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi
In Persian, German, English, and French with English subtitles
Followed by a Q&A with Professor Andrew Leber
Light refreshments will be served
Contact: Andrew Leber (aleber@tulane.edu)
Arabic Movie Night: "The Yacoubian Building" (dir. Marwan Ahmed).
October 18, 5 pm: NH 404
In Arabic with English subtitles. Followed by a Q&A.
Contact: Bouchaib Gadir (bgadir@tulane.edu).
Latifa Ibn Ziaten: Une Femme dans la République (in French)
Tuesday, October 18, 2 pm: Dinwiddie Hall 102
Contact: Fayçal Falaky: ffalaky@tulane.edu.
Co-sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies, French and Italian, Consulat Général de France à la Nouvelle-Orléans.
A poetry evening featuring Dr. Oluwa Niyi Osundare with Dr. Bouchaib Gadir
Wednesday, October 12, 6 pm: Freeman Auditorium (205 Woldenberg Art Center)
Contact: Bouchaib Gadir: bgadir@tulane.edu
Co-sponsored by Arabic Studies, New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, English, Germanic & Slavic Studies.
Maghrebi Concert featuring Dalila Mekader and Mahmoud Chouki
May 5, 5:30: Rogers Memorial Chapel
Contact: Khedidja Boudaba (kboudaba@tulane.edu)
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies
Marie-Pierre Ulloa (Stanford University)
- April 4, 4 pm: “Maghrebi Jews & Muslims at home in California” NH 21.
- April 5, 5:30 pm: “La résistance française à la guerre d’Algérie: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Jeanson et les “porteurs de valises” LBC 201 Race Room.
Contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (etamalet@tulane.edu).
Co-sponsored with the Tulane Tenenbaum Program in Liberal Arts and the Kathryn B. Gore chair of French Studies.
Mark Bayer (University of Texas at San Antonio)
April 13, 5:30 pm: “Romeo and Juliet on the Cairene Stage” NH 308.
Contact: Asmaa Mansour (amansour1@tulane.edu)
Co-sponsored with the Department of English
Tristan Leperlier (CNRS/Columbia University)
April 18, 5:30 pm: "Transnational Maghreb. A Sociological Perspective on a Postcolonial Literature," NH 308.
Co-sponsored with the Kathryn B. Gore Chair of French Studies.
Nadine Naber (University of Illinois at Chicago)
April 25, 5:30 pm: “Arab American Feminist Futures: Beyond Heteropatriarchy and the War on Terror”
Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center
Co-sponsored with the Tulane Tenenbaum Program in Liberal Arts and Tulane University Middle Eastern Union (TUMEU)
New Perspectives on War in the Middle East
Sponsored by the Kathryn B. Gore Chair in French Studies (ramazani@tulane.edu) and by MENA (etamalet@tulane.edu).
March 15, 2022 Schedule
“Towards a Prolepsis of Relation in the Archives of Pre-emptive War”
Featuring Keith Feldman, Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
1:00 pm
“Guantanamo Forever: The Unresolved Legacy of the US Torture Policy”
Featuring Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara
2:00 pm
“Vertical Mediation and Geopolitics in Contemporary Yemen”
Featuring Lisa Parks, Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies and Director of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab, UC Santa Barbara
3:00 pm
“War in Arab Feminist Political Thought”
Featuring miriam cooke, Braxton Craven Distinguished Professor Emerita of Arab Cultures, Duke U
4:00 pm
- November 18, 2021, 3:30 pm (Zoom): Touria Khannous (Louisiana State University). Moroccan Women Filmmakers (details to follow). Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian. Contact: Felicia McCarren (mccarren@tulane.edu).
- November 17, 2021, 5:00 – 6:30 pm (Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex Rm 113): Contested Spaces, Communal Places
Current Issues of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - November 3, 2021, 5:30 pm (Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Rm 210): "An Evening of Music and Poetry featuring Mr. Mahmoud Chouki and Dr. Bouchaib Gadir." Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian, and the Argenti Fund. Contact: Bouchaib Gadir (bgadir@tulane.edu).
- April 8, 2021: Gamze Çavdar (Colorado State University). “Why women support conservative parties: The case of Turkey” Co-sponsored by Department of Communication (contact Esra Ӧzcan, eozcan@tulane.edu).
- Spring Semester 2021: Conflict and Cooperation in Jerusalem: An online exhibition (organized by the Mandel Palagye Program for Middle East Peace).
- March 30, 2021, 1 pm: Mina Karavanta (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). “Specters of the Aegean.” Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian (contact: Roberto Nicosia, rnicosia@tulane.edu).
- March 15, 2021: Dario Miccoli (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice). "Archipelago: Jewish Memories across the Mediterranean." Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian (contact: Edwige Tamalet Talbayev, etamalet@tulane.edu).
- March 19, 2021, 3 pm: Carrie Wickham (Emory University). "What Went Wrong? Why Egypt's Democratic Experiment Fell Apart." Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science (contact: Drew Kinner, dkinney@tulane.edu).
- February 10, 2021, 12 pm: “Longstanding Obstacles, New Horizons: Young Palestinian Activists on the Challenges and Hopes of Grassroots Peacebuilding.” Co-sponsored by the Mandel-Palagye Program for Middle East Peace and the School of Liberal Arts. Download the event flyer.
- February 5, 2021, 3 pm: Sharan Grewal (College of William and Mary). “The Islamist Advantage: The Religious Infrastructure of Electoral Victory.” Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science (contact: Drew Kinney, dkinney@tulane.edu).
- November 13, 2020, 3 pm: Drew Kinney (Tulane University): “Coup Taboo: The Politics of Anti-Coup Norms in Turkey (2016) and Egypt (2013).” In partnership with the Political Science Friday Seminar.
October 29-30, 2019: Driss Ksikes at Tulane. Co-sponsored by Tulane Global Humanities Research Center, School of Liberal Arts, Department of French and Italian.
- October 29, 2019, 4 pm: “Contesting the Public Space: Artistic, Cultural, and Literary Dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa.” Stone Auditorium (in English).
- October 30, 2019, 5:30 pm: “Ecrire entre les genres. ” Newcomb Hall 403 (in French).
- November 15, 2019: MENA Welcome Party at MESA (Middle East Studies Association). 5-7 pm, Tulane River and Coastal Center, 1370 Port of New Orleans Place. Sponsored by Tulane Global Humanities Research Center, School of Liberal Arts.