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Articles tagged with: Middle East

Critical Take-Back: Critical Muslim
January 15, 2012 – 9:54 pm | No Comment
Critical Take-Back: Critical Muslim

A new quarterly publication hopes to reclaim critical debate about Muslims, latching onto the spaces out of Arab uprisings in the Middle East. Critical Muslim is a response to superficial journalistic tendencies that disservice the very idea of “critical scholarship” in Islamic tradition. A tradition - as Critical Muslim co-editor, Ziauddun Sardar, points out - that is too easily forgotten, most easily by Muslims actively consuming the very media that conveniently disengages them from critically thinking about the world in which they live.

Worldtown Happenings :: Land in Focus
April 8, 2011 – 7:12 pm | No Comment
Worldtown Happenings :: Land in Focus

Last night, I attended Land in Focus’s special country series showcasing a full cultural spectrum of arts with a regional dimension. Land in Focus highlights the films and cultures of countries from Latin America, …

The Arab Spring
March 29, 2011 – 9:58 pm | 3 Comments
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The Arab Spring continues to blossom, in sporadic and unexpected ways: Spring interrupted by the chill of westerly wind, and spring fruitful of blooms in the gardens of the East, catapulted by human movement and …

Notes On The Egypt We Don’t Know
January 30, 2011 – 11:47 pm | No Comment
Notes On The Egypt We Don’t Know

Every one has a theory on what it means to be Egyptian right now. Defiant, aggrieved, oppressed, tired, agitated, fighters,vehement, fearless, revolutionaries, ready. Few seem to see the long and difficult process that led to this …

This is… Omar Offendum
December 20, 2010 – 3:19 am | One Comment
This is… Omar Offendum

“Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s an Arab superhero and he came to bring change”. This is a line from the track “Superhero” on Omar Offendum’s (born Chakaki) debut …

Worldtown Via Londtown :: Poetry International 2010
November 4, 2010 – 7:17 pm | No Comment
Worldtown Via Londtown :: Poetry International 2010

Poetry International, the biennial festival of - you guessed it - international poetry returns to London this weekend. The festival itself features poets, readings, music and translations from over twenty countries, but the emphasis this …

Pass the “Microphone” in Alexandria
October 20, 2010 – 10:17 pm | No Comment
Pass the “Microphone” in Alexandria

“Microphone” is the new production by Egyptian director Ahmad Abdalla. Using documentary style through a fictionalized narrative, Microphone tells the story of Alexandria’s underground music scene. However, Abdalla changes - or so we’re told - …

Worldtown Via Londontown :: Lyrical Alliance
October 16, 2010 – 10:27 am | No Comment
Worldtown Via Londontown :: Lyrical Alliance

If you ask many young listeners about hip hop’s history, you’d scant hear about its roots in African-American culture, about its foundation as a subculture taking root from East Coast to West Coast, a movement …

Worldtown Via Londtown :: The Siege of Beirut and the Ethics of Representation
July 13, 2010 – 5:37 pm | No Comment
Worldtown Via Londtown :: The Siege of Beirut and the Ethics of Representation

There’s an interesting new project based out of the University of Kent who’s methods seem really cool, even if the ultimate ends seem questionably ambiguous. Through four new projects, the research programme Radical Distrust hopes …

Worldtown Reviews :: I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother
February 3, 2010 – 5:40 pm | No Comment
Worldtown Reviews :: I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother

For the characters inhabiting Amir Nizar Zuabi’s ‘I am Yusuf and This Is My Brother’, survival is paramount; but there is no redemption to be found in this haunting play.