Subjects Archives: Culture

  David Jan Sorkin.  The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.  xv + 339 pp.  $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-691-13502-1. On January 14, 1791, the Comte de Mirabeau delivered a speech to the National Assembly in defense of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the controversial project […]

  Arthur Hyman, Alfred Ivry, ed.  Maimonidean Studies.  Volume 5. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing House, 2008.  442 pp. $49.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-88125-941-4. The fifth volume of Maimonidean Studies is an eclectic amalgam of studies, the majority of which are based on papers delivered at a conference in New York City commemorating the 800th anniversary of […]

  Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 3 July 2009 Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 4 July 2009 Sandra Cuffe an independent journalist from Canada, currently reporting from the streets of Tegucigalpa.  Visit her blog Solidarity with the People(s) of Honduras! at <hondurassolidarity.wordpress.com>.

  Iranian Documentary Filmmakers’ Declaration Déclaration des documentaristes du cinéma iranien بیانیه جمعی از مستندسازان سینمای ایران درباره ایران امروز We say this as a warning: depriving citizens of peaceful and respectful communication in the midst of the tense circumstances of the present time can lead to a violent reaction on the part of society, […]

  Paul Nugent.  Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  xix + 620 pp.  $99.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-333-68272-2; $35.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-333-68273-9. This is a masterful work of usable academic history.  By sharply delineating diverse trends in scores of countries, it applies expert analysis to sub-Saharan Africa, “the continent which has been […]

  Celia E. Naylor.  African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizens.   The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.  Illustrations, maps.  xii + 360 pp.  $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-3203-5; $22.50 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8078-5883-7. Debates about the citizenship status of Cherokee freedmen […]

  Here we publish an interview with Farian Sabahi, an Italian-Iranian professor at Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Turin.  A professional journalist, Sabahi has been writing for Corriere della Sera for several months.  She was a guest of LibrInTerra on the 26th of March, presenting her two books Storia dell’Iran [A History […]

  Hazel Dickens, Bill C. Malone.  Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens.   Music in American Life Series.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.  Illustrations.  ix + 102 pp.  $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-03304-9; $17.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-07549-0. One of the foremost voices on behalf of working people in country music recently […]

  “Fetishism: the Key to Sensuality”; “Is Cannibalism a New Religion?”; “Syrian Lingerie”; “I Am Gay, Therefore I Do Not Exist.” . . .  With such a table of contents, Jasad (“body” in Arabic), a Lebanese, Arabic-language, cultural quarterly “specializing in the art, literature, and science of the body,” might be mistaken for an unidentified […]

  The East Palestine Archipelago Above: Imagined map by Julien Bousac, graphically illustrating the Palestinians’ difficulty in getting around.  All the zones of the West Bank occupied by Israel are pictured as the sea.  Left: The legend of the map in English. Source: L’Atlas, Un monde à l’envers, Paris: Le Monde diplomatique, 2009. Download the […]

  Students and community members near the UC Berkeley campus were surprised one weekend to see a series of bus shelter billboards asking, “What country uses live ammunition against unarmed children?”  Below a photo of identically dressed schoolboys in front of a barbed wire fence is the answer: Israel. The guerrilla ads replaced ads which […]

On May Day, still under the impression of the parade, the colors of our flag, today a symbol in the eyes of the world, and the youthful, intelligent and enthusiastic faces of our students, who closed the parade of that overflowing river, the words of the poet, repeated so many times that day, came to my mind:

  Alfredo Jaar: There are two thinkers, Italian thinkers, that I admire greatly: Antonio Gramsci and Pier Paolo Pasolini.  I was invited for a series of exhibitions in Italy last year, and I wanted to make homage to both men.  In the world of culture today, I miss Gramsci, and I miss Pasolini.  I miss […]

  “The class struggle, which is always present to a historian influenced by Marx, is a fight for the crude and material things without which no refined or spiritual things could exist.  Nevertheless, it is not in the form of the spoils which fall to the victor that the latter make their presence felt. [. […]

  “We know today is an important day in Argentina, which marks the 33rd anniversary of the military coup d’état.  We’d like to dedicate the following song to all the victims who suffered, to those who lost their loved ones, to those who were imprisoned and tortured, to those who were disappeared. . . .  […]

  See, also, Shubhranshu Choudhary, “‘All Idiot Farmers Commit Suicide’” (Down to Earth, 15 April 2009). This program was broadcast by Press TV on 16 April 2009.

  Default: The Student Loan Documentary is a feature-length documentary chronicling the stories of borrowers from different backgrounds affected by the student lending industry and their struggles to change the system. No matter when their loans were taken, many borrowers now find themselves in a paralyzing predicament of repaying two, three, or multiple times the […]

  Pieter Fleury is a Dutch filmmaker.  North Korea: A Day in the Life (2004), written, directed, and produced by Fleury, with cooperation of the Ministry of Culture of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, won the Amnesty International Award at IndieLisboa 2005 and received a “Special Mention” at the FIPA Biarritz 2005 among other […]

  Obama did what was expected, dispensing good luck charms for all.  What he left behind is a state of delirium, a la the Hunchback of Notre Dame: “He gave me water.” Even though some of Obama’s gestures during the visit — such as Obama reminding the young people he was chatting with of the […]

  Chestnut Hill, MA — After administrators at Boston College forced the cancellation late Friday afternoon of an academic lecture featuring Professor Bill Ayers, student organizers of the event have decided that the show will go on — off-campus.  Student groups and faculty at Boston College drew criticism from a right-wing talk radio show host […]