Category Archives: Blog

When I was in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban were battling for control–now, they’re starting to take over…

When I was living in Tajikistan, I took this photo of a somersaulting bear drinking RC Cola in front of the Opera House…

Contemporary Mali: Defining Mali through Women’s Voices
Thursday, October 23, 6:00 p.m.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tonight at the MET, Dr. Henry Louis Gates will speak with Malian Minister of Culture N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo and Ousseina Alidou, Director of the Center for African Studies at Rutgers University. N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo, has forged a remarkable path for women in Mali, as only the second female minister of culture in the country’s history. Minister Diallo, Alidou, and Dr. Gates will explore the role of women in Mali’s current and future government, as well as women’s role in Mali’s identity and the current initiatives aimed at advancing the political participation of women.

A traveling Smithsonian exhibit of collage works based on Homer’s Odyssey by the celebrated African American artist Romare Bearden (1911–1988) will make its final stop at Columbia’s Wallach Gallery starting November 15. Bearden’s work bridges African American culture, Homer’s classic poem, and universal themes of wandering, exile, and returning home. The exhibition is sponsored by the Stavros Nairchos Foundation and curated by Robert O’Meally, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for Jazz Studies.

Silk Road Rising‘s “Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs and the Contours of Contested Whiteness,” directed by Jamil Khoury and Stephen Combs, is a documentary film that explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness…

In the United States, October is designated as “Disability Employment Awareness Month.” Here in Lebanon, disabled individuals also face enormous challenges in getting hired. According to Imad al-Hout, chairman of Al-Amal Society for Development and Social Care, in Lebanon “eighty percent of disabled people, who are capable of working, are unemployed because of discrimination.”

Here’s the trailer for Women Without Men—Shirin Neshat‘s 2009 film adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur’s magic realist novel. The film follows the lives of four women in Iran in the summer of 1953, when an American led and British backed coup d’état removed the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power and reinstalled the Shah.

I’m really interested in social justice, and if an artist has a certain power of being heard and voicing something important, it’s right to do it. It could still be done in such a way that it’s not aggressive or overly didactic.
I’m trying to find that form.

— Shirin Neshat/شیرین نشاط‎

In Turbulent, Shirin Neshat‘s 1998 two-screen video installation, two singers (Shoja Azari playing the role of the male and Iranian Vocalist and composer Sussan Deyhim as the female) create a powerful musical metaphor for the complexity of gender roles and cultural power within the framework of ancient Persian music and poetry.

Tonight in New York, Professor Richard Falk will deliver the annual Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University. His talk will focus on the present reality and future direction of the Palestinian struggle, taking account of the continuing relevance of Edward Said’s views of the grounds of a sustainable peace and proceeding from his prophetic premise that the two-state approach should no longer becloud our judgment. Richard Falk is Albert G. Professor of International Law and Practice Emeritus at Princeton where he was a member of the faculty for 40 years. He was Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine for the UN Human Rights Council from 2008-2014, and served on a panel of experts appointed by the President of the UN General Assembly, 2008-2009. Tonight’s sold-out event will be live-streamed starting at 6:15 pm EST on the Italian Academy webpage.