Bücher veröffentlicht von Syracuse University Press

Examines the origins, evolution, and resilience of the Western Sahara conflict, deploying a diverse array of sources and firsthand knowledge of the region gained from multiple research visits. By shifting geographical frames-local, regional, and international-this provides a robust analysis of the stakes involved.

This volume presents a cultural record of the Jewish folk music of Eastern Europe, through the eyes of ethnomusicologist, Moshe Beregovski. It includes contextual responses to Jewish folk music, essays on musical influences, and notes and lyrics of nearly 300 folk songs.

In this deftly turned story, author Frances Khirallah Noble presents a story that is at once sublimely comic yet surprisingly erudite in the subjects it tackles. Its hero, Kahlil Gibran Hourani, is an ordinary, in fact rather bumbling, middle-aged Syrian American optician. On the eve of his fifty-third birthday Kali finds himself confronting seminal questions. "I face the last third of my life, he reflects, "and I don't know what to do with myself. Every day I ask how should I be living now? What should I do with the end in sight? Can I come to terms with it?" Enter his dead grandmother, the wisely sardonic Situe. Although she appears in a dream at first and reappears at whim, Situe's presence will turn Kali's life upside down. Through a series of misadventures Kali is abducted and wrongly suspected of being a terrorist by apparent rogue government agents. His darkly absurd experiences force Kali to question his own perceptions, inviting the reader to do the same. Part myth, part magical realism, always knowing, the book offers a biting critique on issues of race, constitutional rights, and the realities of Arab American life in a post 9/11 world.

Nelly Hanna's work challenges the standard perceptions about Middle East society and economy of the seventeenth century. Both novel in its approach and information, this book's central theme revolvesaround the rise of an indigenous form of capitalism existing as early as the 1600s. Making Big Money in 1600 examines the reemergence of the economic sector and its complex influences on social conditions during this time. By examining the life and work of Isma'il Abu Taqiyya, Hanna traces the relationship between economic activities and culture. As we are introduced to Abu Taqiyya we learn how he negotiates partnership with other merchants, arranges for the handling of goods, and negotiates loans for colleagues. Hanna reveals his home life, his wives, children, and concubines, his relations with his family and friends, and how these relations evolved and were affected by the changing social and economic conditions-a perspective rarely discussed in works before the modern period.

Walid Masoud disappears. A Palestinian intellectual, he has been living in Baghdad since the first Israeli War of 1948. As a member of an organization engaged in the armed struggle against Israel, suspicion arises that he has gone underground as part of a political movement. Masoud leaves behind a lengthy but disconnected tape recording of garble utterances through which Jabra Ibrahim Jabra artfully crafts the basis for the narration. He transforms the transcription of the tape by each of Masoud's comrades into a study of character. Through a series of monologues, each becomes a narrator of his own experience. Readers of The Ship (also translated by Adnan Haydar and Roger Allen) will remember the ingenious way the political themes emerge through the dialogue between passengers on a ship crossing the Mediterranean from the Arab to the European world. This novel echoes identical subjects: the misperceptions between Western and Islamic cultures, personal landscape as a shaper of culture, and the necessity of political commitment. A tour de force that places the evolution of the Faulknerian style into a political register, this book is a testament to the brilliance of one of Palestine's preeminent writers.

The legal treatment of sexual behavior is a subject that receives little scholarly attention in the field of Middle East women's studies. Important questions about the relationship between sexuality and the law and about the societies enforcing that relationship are rarely addressed in the current literature. Elyse Semerdjian's "Off the Straight Path" takes a bold step toward filling that gap by offering a fascinating look at the historical progression of the treatment of illicit sex under Islamic law. Semerdjian provides a comprehensive review of the concept of zina, i.e., sexual indiscretion, by exploring the diverse interpretation of zina crime as presented in a variety of sources from the Qur'an and hadith to legal literature. She then delves into the history of legal responses to zina within the specific community of Aleppo, Syria. Drawing on a wealth of shari'a court records, Semerdjian provides a realistic view of Syrian society during the Ottoman period. With vivid detail, she describes specific women's lives and experiences as their cases are presented before the court. Semerdjian argues that the actual treatment of zina crimes in the courts differs substantially from sentences prescribed by codified Islamic jurisprudence. In contrast to the violent corporal punishments dictated in the Islamic legal code, the courts often punished crimes of sexual indiscretion with nonviolent sentences, such as removal from the community. Employing exceptional insight, "Off the Straight Path" presents a powerful challenge to the traditional view of Islamic law, enabling a richer understanding of Islamic society.

"Zencirci introduces the concept of the Muslim Social, defined as a welfare regime that reimagined and reconfigured Islamic charitable practices to address the complex needs of a modern market society. Although these governmental assemblages of Islamic neoliberalism produced new forms of generosity, distinctive notions of poverty, and novel ways of relating to others in society, Zencirci reveals how this welfare regime privileged managerial efficiency and emotional well-being at the expense of other objectives such as equality, development, or justice"--

Twenty-two selected werewolf tales offer an unprecedented look at the mystique of the werewolf in relation to human behavior and varied aspects of the human psyche.

Offers a compelling and far-reaching alternative to the traditional mode of analyzing Arabic literature.

Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934) is considered Israel's national poet and one of the greatest Hebrew poets of all time. Several of his poems, particularly his immensely popular children's verse, were set to music and proved to be among the most popular twentieth-century Hebrew songs. An essayist, storyteller, translator, and editor, he had a unique ability to use fully the entire linguistic and conceptual inventory of the Hebrew language. Bialik's career was a turning point in Hebrew literature, bringing Biblical Hebrew into a contemporary usage and forming the basis of its renewed vigor. His legacy remains embedded in modern Hebrew literature like an immovable foundation stone. Atar Hadari's new translation of Bialik's major poetry fills a long-standing gap in English letters.

As a small sect that emerged from Islam over years ago, the Druze religion and society has been cloaked in a tradition of secrecy. This book provides an analysis of Druze scriptures and beliefs (Tawhid). It presents a chronological narrative on the foundation and development of the faith, explaining historical conditions and religious rationale.

Despite expectations that the deeply held political and religious organizing principles at the heart of the Muslim Brotherhood would prove incompatible and contentious should the organization ever come to power, the Brotherhood succeeded in maintaining a united identity following the 2011 ousting of Hosni Mubarak and the election of a Brotherhood-majority government. To understand how the movement threaded these disparate missions, Sumita Pahwa examines the movement's internal debates on preaching, activism, and social reform from the 1980s through the 2000s. In doing so, she finds that the framing of political work as ethical conduct has been critical to the organization's functioning.Through a comprehensive analysis of texts, speeches, public communications, interviews, and internal training documents, Pahwa shows how Islamic and religious ideals have been folded into the political discourse of the Brotherhood, enabling the leadership to shift the boundaries of justifiable and righteous action. Over a period of three decades, the movement has built an influential Islamic political project and carved a unified identity around how to "work for God."

In Thomas Drew and the Making of Victorian Belfast, Farrell analyzes the career of "political parson" Thomas Drew (1800-70), creator of one of the largest Church of Ireland congregations on the island and leading figure in the Loyal Orange Order. Farrell demonstrates how Drew's success stemmed from an adaptive combination of his fierce anti-Catholicism and populist Protestant politics, the creation of social and spiritual outreach programs that placed Christ Church at the center of west Belfast life, and the rapid growth of the northern capital. At its core, the book highlights the synthetic nature of Drew's appeal to a vital cross-class community of Belfast Protestant men and women, a fact that underlines both the success of his ministry and the long-term durability of sectarian lines of division in the city and province. The dynamics Farrell discusses were also not confined to Ireland, and one of the book's central features is the close attention paid to the ways that developments in Belfast were linked to broader Atlantic and imperial contexts.Based on a wide array of new and underutilized archival sources, Thomas Drew and the Making of Victorian Belfast is the first detailed examination of not only Thomas Drew, but also the relationships between anti-Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, and populist politics in early Victorian Belfast.

The history of Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire has largely been narrated as a unique period of equality, reform, and progress, often framing it as the backdrop to modern Turkey. Inspired by Walter Benjamin's exhortation to study the oppressed to understand the rule and the ruler, Talin Suciyan reexamines this era from the perspective of the Armenians. In exploring the temporal and territorial differences between the Ottoman capital and the provinces, Suciyan brings the unheard voices of Armenians into the present. Drawing upon the rich archival materials in both the Archives of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ottoman Archives, Suciyan uses these to show the integral role Armenians played in all aspects of Ottoman life and argues that accounts of their lives are vital to accurate representation of the Tanzimat era. In shedding much needed light on the lives of those who were vulnerable, disadvantaged, and otherwise oppressed, Suciyan takes a significant step toward a more inclusive Ottoman history.

This collection of essays builds on the contributions of Albert Schweitzer's philosophy of "Reverence for Life" as it pertains to our world today.

In this book, Philip Arnold utilizes a collaborative method, derived from the "Two-Row Wampum" (1613) and his 40 year relationship with the Haudenosaunee, in exploring the urgent need to understand Indigenous values, support Indigenous Peoples, and to offer a way toward humanity's survival in the face of ecological and environmental catastrophe. Indigenous values connect human beings with the living natural world through ceremonial exchange practices with non-human beings who co-inhabit the homelands. Arnold outlines Indigenous traditions of habitation and ceremonial gift economies and contrasts those with settler-colonial values of commodification where the land and all aspects of material life belongs to human beings and are reduced to monetary use-value. Through an examination of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a series of fifteenth-century documents that used religious decrees to justify the subjugation and annihilation of Indigenous Peoples, Arnold shows how issues such as environmental devastation, social justice concerns, land theft, and forced conversion practices have their origins in settler-colonial relationships with the sacred--that persists today. Designed to initiate a conversation in the classroom, in the academy, and in various communities about what is essential to the category of Indigeneity, this book offers a way of understanding value systems of Indigenous peoples. By pairing the concepts of Indigeneity and religion around competing values systems, Arnold transforms our understanding of both categories.

Rebellious Laughter changes the way we think about the ordinary joke. Claiming that humor in America is a primary cultural weapon, Boskin surveys the multitude of joke cycles that have swept the country during the last fifty years. Dumb Blonde jokes. Elephant jokes. Jewish-American Princess jokes. Lightbulb jokes. Readers will enjoy humor from many diverse sources: whites, blacks, women, and Hispanics; conservatives and liberals; public workers and university students; the powerless and power brokers. Boskin argues that jokes provide a cultural barometer of concerns and anxieties, frequently appearing in our day-to-day language long before these issues become grist for stand-up comics.

This is a historical study of acculturation in New York City. It documents the Americanisation of foreign enclaves within the city, showing the effects produced by church, school, foreign-language press and libraries - the methods by which the Democratic Party enlisted the immigrant vote.

The Liber Augustalis was born of no grand design but of the demands of government. This body of law marked a moment of triumph in the long and frustrating struggle by which Frederick attempted to establish his royal authority in the Kingdom of Sicily. Frederick had smashed rebellions by the Muslim population and by the nobility, while he systematically negotiated with the clergy over disputed domains. It was as a victorious king and emperor that he ordered the compilation of the Liber Augustalis-a cornerstone of royal authority-in part a summing up of the previous legal efforts of the monarchy, in part a significant move beyond the limitations of previous legislation.The Liber Augusta/is blended many disparate influences into a common body of law. The existing legal traditions-Lombard, Byzantine, and Norman-the Canon law of the Church, and the learning of the Bolognese scholars, especially Master Petrus Della Vigna, provided sources on which Frederick could draw, but the laws represent the viewpoint of the monarchy rather than those of the powerful groups within the kingdom-Church, nobility, and towns whose interests were often counter to those of the king. Ultimately events proved that the greatest danger to Frederick's rule lay not in the kingdom itself but in the determination of the papacy and the Roman curia to prevent Sicily from becoming the seat of empire in Italy. In 1231, however, when Frederick was formulating his imperial policy, the first priority lay in establishing the strongest posture for monarchy.

A collection of essays by area specialists and conflict resolution scholars exploring the vital role of mediation in the Arab world.

In this book, Philip Arnold utilizes a collaborative method, derived from the "Two-Row Wampum" (1613) and his 40 year relationship with the Haudenosaunee, in exploring the urgent need to understand Indigenous values, support Indigenous Peoples, and to offer a way toward humanity's survival in the face of ecological and environmental catastrophe. Indigenous values connect human beings with the living natural world through ceremonial exchange practices with non-human beings who co-inhabit the homelands. Arnold outlines Indigenous traditions of habitation and ceremonial gift economies and contrasts those with settler-colonial values of commodification where the land and all aspects of material life belongs to human beings and are reduced to monetary use-value.Through an examination of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a series of fifteenth-century documents that used religious decrees to justify the subjugation and annihilation of Indigenous Peoples, Arnold shows how issues such as environmental devastation, social justice concerns, land theft, and forced conversion practices have their origins in settler-colonial relationships with the sacred-that persists today. Designed to initiate a conversation in the classroom, in the academy, and in various communities about what is essential to the category of Indigeneity, this book offers a way of understanding value systems of Indigenous peoples. By pairing the concepts of Indigeneity and religion around competing values systems, Arnold transforms our understanding of both categories.

When the young narrator of Miriam Karpilove's A Provincial Newspaper leaves New York to work for a new Yiddish newspaper in Massachusetts, she expects to be treated with respect as a professional writer. Instead, she finds herself underpaid and overworked. In this slapstick novella, Karpilove's narrator lampoons the gaggle of blundering publishers and editors who put her through the ringer and spit her back out again.Along with A Provincial Newspaper, this captivating collection includes nineteen stories originally published in Forverts in the 1930s, during Karpilove's time as a staff writer at that newspaper. In the stories, we find a large cast of characters-an older woman navigating widowhood, a writer rebuffed by dismissive audiences, American-born Jewish girls unable to communicate with Yiddish-speaking immigrants, and a painter so overcome with jealousy about his muse's potential lover that he misses his opportunity with her-each portrayed with both sympathy and irony, in ways unexpected and delightful. Also included are Karpilove's recollections of her arrival in Palestine in 1926, chronicled with the same buoyant cynicism and witty repartee that is beloved by readers of her fiction.