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Books by Deborah Starr

In this book, Deborah A. Starr recuperates the work of Togo Mizrahi, a pioneer of Egyptian cinema... more In this book, Deborah A. Starr recuperates the work of Togo Mizrahi, a pioneer of Egyptian cinema. Mizrahi, an Egyptian Jew with Italian nationality, established himself as a prolific director of popular comedies and musicals in the 1930s and 1940s. As a studio owner and
producer, Mizrahi promoted the idea that developing a local cinema industry was a project of national importance. Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema integrates film analysis with film history to tease out the cultural and political implications of Mizrahi’s work. His movies, Starr argues, subvert dominant notions of race, gender, and nationality through their playful—and queer—use of masquerade and mistaken identity. Taken together, Mizrahi’s films offer a hopeful vision of a pluralist Egypt. By reevaluating Mizrahi’s contributions to Egyptian culture, Starr challenges readers to reconsider the debates over who is Egyptian and what constitutes national cinema.

Available open access at: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520366206/togo-mizrahi-and-the-making-of-egyptian-cinema

The writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff (1917–1979) offer a refreshing reassessment of Arab-Je... more The writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff (1917–1979) offer a refreshing reassessment of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East. A member of the bourgeois Jewish community in Cairo, Kahanoff grew up in a time of coexistence. She spent the years of World War II in New York City, where she launched her writing career with publications in prominent American journals. Kahanoff later settled in Israel, where she became a noted cultural and literary critic.

Mongrels or Marvels offers Kahanoff's most influential and engaging writings, selected from essays and works of fiction that anticipate contemporary concerns about cultural integration in immigrant societies. Confronted with the breakdown of cosmopolitan Egyptian society, and the stereotypes she encountered as a Jew from the Arab world, she developed a social model, Levantinism, that embraces the idea of a pluralist, multicultural society and counters the prevailing attitudes and identity politics in the Middle East with the possibility of mutual respect and acceptance.

Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt examines the link between cosmopolitanism in Egypt, from the ninet... more Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt examines the link between cosmopolitanism in Egypt, from the nineteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century, and colonialism. While it has been widely noted that such a relationship exists, the nature and impact of this dynamic is often overlooked. Taking a theoretical, literary and historical approach, the author argues that the notion of the cosmopolitan is inseparable from, and indebted to, its foundation in empire.

Since the late 1970s a number of artistic works have appeared that represent the diversity of ethnic, national, and religious communities present in Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period of direct and indirect European domination, the cosmopolitan society evident in these texts thrived. Through detailed analysis of these texts, which include contemporary novels written in Arabic and Hebrew as well as Egyptian films, the implications of the close relationship between colonialism and cosmopolitanism are explored.

This comparative study of the contemporary literary and cultural revival of interest in Egypt’s cosmopolitan past will be of interest to students of Middle Eastern Studies, Literary and Cultural Studies and Jewish Studies.

Papers by Deborah Starr

African Studies Review, 2021

Remembering cosmopolitan egypt STARR Deborah.

Mikan: A Journal of Israeli and Jewish Literature and Culture, 2018

(In Hebrew) קריאה, כתיבה והיזכרות: רונית מטלון וספרות הזיכרון היהודית־מצרית

Politics/Letters, 2018

"Writing about Writing about Alexandria---a Response to May Hawas."

Togo Mizrahi, an Egyptian-born Jew, established a movie studio and production company in Alexandr... more Togo Mizrahi, an Egyptian-born Jew, established a movie studio and production company in Alexandria, and became one of the most prolific filmmakers in Egypt in the 1930s and 40s. Films produced in Mizrahi’s Alexandria studio between 1934 and 1939 represent a culture of coexistence among the lower classes, featuring Jewish, Greek, Nubian, and Levantine characters, alongside the majority Muslim population. I argue that these films attempt to shape to the popular imaginary of what it means to be Egyptian through their representations of a diverse urban landscape.

This article examines two films that Mizrahi wrote, directed, and produced featuring a friendship between a Chalom, a Jew, and 'Abdu, a Muslim: al-Manduban [Two Delegates, 1934]; al-'Izz Bahdala [Mistreated by Affluence, 1937]. These films construct an ethics of coexistence, perhaps best articulated through the repeated celebration of the dual weddings between Chalom and Esther, 'Abdu and Amina.

In contrast to the social status of the Egyptian Jewish Bourgeoisie, this article argues that Mizrahi’s films specifically seek to articulate the place of Jews in the Egyptian polity through characterization of Chalom as a salt-of-the-earth, Arabic-speaking, ibn al-balad.

This article explores how Mizrahi’s films contributed to debates about who was Egyptian.
The 1930s and 40s saw the rise of notions of Egyptian national identity that excluded minorities. Despite Mizrahi’s effort to portray a culture of coexistence, the Chalom and 'Abdu films contain with themselves the discourse of otherness that were employed to drive a wedge between Egyptianness and Jewishness.

This article examines the portrayal of Alexandria as a cosmopolitan space in Arabic-language film... more This article examines the portrayal of Alexandria as a cosmopolitan space in Arabic-language films written, directed, and produced by Togo Mizrahi (1901-1986) in his Alexandria studio during the 1930s. This article examines two comedies, al-Duktur Farhat [Doctor Farhat (1935)] and al-cIzz Bahdala [Mistreated By Affluence (1937)] that feature plots of mistaken identity involving gender play, cross-dressing, and same-sex couples sharing a bed. Taking a cue from a scene in Mistreated By Affluence in which a Jew and a Muslim are shown waking up together in their shared bed, this article traces the interplay between the queering of the private space, specifically the bed, and the films' construction of fluid communal, civic identities. The phrase “in bed together” is taken not merely a metaphor of coexistence, but also a key to unlocking the films’ projection of notions of sameness and difference, self and other, in 1930s Alexandria. These films also reflect upon and critique emerging middle class assumptions about modernity and the nation.

Egyptian films from the 1930s through the 1950s reflected the diversity of Egypt's cities. This a... more Egyptian films from the 1930s through the 1950s reflected the diversity of Egypt's cities. This article argues that a subtle but notable shift in the semiotics of otherness—from a Levantine idiom to a less fluid construction of ethno-religious identity—occurs over this period in Egyptian cinema. Analysis of the films Salamah fi khayr [Salama is Fine] and al-cIzz bahdala [Mistreated by Affluence], both released in 1937, reveals what the author identifies as a "Levantine" idiom. These films articulate an ethics of coexistence, adopt a visual language of inclusion, and represent identity as fluid and mutable. Postwar "ethnic comedies" such as Faṭimah wa-Marika wa-Rashil [Fatima, Marika, and Rachel, (1949)] and Ḥasan wa-Murqus wa-Kohayn [Hasan, Marcus, and Cohen (1954)], continue to take Egyptian diversity for granted. However, as this article demonstrates, the characteristics that had defined Levantine cinema—ethics, aesthetics, and fluidity of identity—are no longer present. All the films under discussion treat ethno-religious and national identity as performance. However, that being said, the valences attached to the comic appropriation of an identity not one's own via role play, assumed identities, and sudden, disorienting class mobility shift over time in nuanced but significant ways. In establishing the idioms of "Levantine cinema" and "ethnic comedies," this article also takes as a counterpoint the 2008 film Ḥasan wa-Murqus [Hasan and Marcus] which draws upon these earlier Egyptian cinematic traditions in constructing its own discourse of coexistence.

Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, Jan 1, 2006

Maurice Shammas (Abu Farid) stands out among writers whose literary works represent Jewish life i... more Maurice Shammas (Abu Farid) stands out among writers whose literary works represent Jewish life in modern Egypt. His collection of short stories Al-shaykh shabtay wa-hikayat min harat al-yahud [Sheik Shabbtai and Stories from Harat al-Yahud (1979)] and his memoir ‘Azza, hafidat nifirtiti [‘Azza, Nefertiti’s Granddaughter (2003)], written in Arabic, represent not the wealthy cosmopolitans, but rather the poor residents of Cairo’s harat al-yahud. This article explores Shammas’s representations of the city, arguing that for Shammas the city’s textuality is not primarily visual or material, but aural. The spaces of the city are defined by the sounds that fill them: Arabic music and the musicality of Arabic, verbal and non-verbal human expression, and the noise of the structures of the city themselves. This article also traces and unpacks the intertwined tropes of nationalism and urban localism, cosmopolitanism and parochialism, language and identity in Shammas’s writings.

The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English, edited by Nouri Gana (Edinburgh University Press), 2013

On the surface, Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club (1964) reads as a typical post-colonial n... more On the surface, Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club (1964) reads as a typical post-colonial novel; the Francophone, British educated Egyptian Coptic protagonists struggle with their conflicting allegiances to the English culture that produced and imposed colonialism, and to the Egyptian revolution that opposed colonialism but also implemented repressive domestic policies. As this article argues, the novel ultimately rejects the mediated binaries of post-coloniality, searching instead for a notion of cosmopolitan identity, defined both as a historically and locally situated urban subject and as a politically engaged “citizen of the world.” After the publication of the novel, Ghali began writing another work, referred to in his papers as “the Ashl novel,” which remained incomplete at the time of his death. These papers, as this article argues, demonstrate Ghali’s further exploration of cosmopolitanism abandoning altogether the situatedness provided by national identity.

In the mid-20th century, the foreign-minority communities that had played a significant role in s... more In the mid-20th century, the foreign-minority communities that had played a significant role in shaping the culture, institutions, and built environment of modern Alexandria were compelled to leave Egypt. In the intervening years, as Alexandria’s status was transformed from cosmopolis to regional capital, the foreign minorities, if recalled at all, were cast as compradors to colonial interests. Since the 1990s, there has been a revival of interest in Alexandria’s modern cosmopolitan past, as evidenced both in urban renovation projects and in Egyptian literature. This article aims to interpret these separate but parallel trends. The connection this article makes between these two distinct forms of narrative hinges on the trope of circulation. The renovation projects, including improvements to the circulation of traffic, reflect a marketing strategy that circulates nostalgic images or narratives of the city’s cosmopolitan past. The novel discussed in this article, Ambergris Birds by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, is likewise a narrative of circulation concerned with recuperating Alexandria’s cosmopolitanism. In reading the two narratives against each other, this article attempts to unpack the ideological underpinnings of their recuperative gestures.

Keywords: Literature; Egypt; nostalgia; cosmopolitanism

Web Links by Deborah Starr

Reviews by Deborah Starr

Comparative Literature Studies, 2004

AJS Review, 2019

Aimée Israel-Pelletier. On the Mediterranean and the Nile: The Jews of Egypt .Bloomington: I... more Aimée Israel-Pelletier.
On the Mediterranean and the Nile: The Jews of Egypt
.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. 226 pp.
doi:10.1017/S0364009419000795

comparative literature studies, Jan 1, 2011

Available open access at: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520366206/togo-mizrahi-and-the-making-of-egyptian-cinema

African Studies Review, 2021

Remembering cosmopolitan egypt STARR Deborah.

Mikan: A Journal of Israeli and Jewish Literature and Culture, 2018

(In Hebrew) קריאה, כתיבה והיזכרות: רונית מטלון וספרות הזיכרון היהודית־מצרית

Politics/Letters, 2018

"Writing about Writing about Alexandria---a Response to May Hawas."

Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, Jan 1, 2006

The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English, edited by Nouri Gana (Edinburgh University Press), 2013

Keywords: Literature; Egypt; nostalgia; cosmopolitanism

Comparative Literature Studies, 2004

AJS Review, 2019

comparative literature studies, Jan 1, 2011

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Feb 1, 2002

This noteworthy book by Yerach Gover has been long overlooked. Gover demonstrates through his sop... more This noteworthy book by Yerach Gover has been long overlooked. Gover demonstrates through his sophisticated analyses of selected Hebrew literary texts how Israeli liberal society constructs a moral conscience in bad faith. The book's implicit and explicit critiques of Zionism have likely contributed to the lack of critical interest in this important study. Perhaps in the public airing of such issues, in both the Israeli press and academic circles, this book may gain the belated recognition it deserves.

Comparative Literature Studies, 2004

Starr, Deborah A. Review of The Experimental Arabic Novel: Postcolonial Literary Modernism in the... more Starr, Deborah A. Review of The Experimental Arabic Novel: Postcolonial Literary Modernism in the Levant. Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 41 no. 2, 2004, p. 303-306. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cls.2004.0025

Hebrew Studies, Jan 1, 2000

International Journal of Middle East Studies

From the 1920s through the 1940s, the Egyptian press covered the rise of cinema production in Egy... more From the 1920s through the 1940s, the Egyptian press covered the rise of cinema production in Egypt. These print sources have proved to be an invaluable resource for scholars of Egyptian cinema history—as have the libraries that preserve this archive. Libraries and research institutes—including AUC—have sought to collect and preserve other print ephemera related to film, such as, press books and movie posters.

This paper seeks to move beyond the walls of formal archives with their distinctive missions, to explore informal archives. For example, in the last decade individual fans have been recording television broadcasts of early Egyptian films and uploading them to YouTube. From the perspective of the scholar, YouTube has its pitfalls as an archive: the curation is haphazard; quality is poor; and videos disappear without notice. Yet, the collection, provides open access to the scholar and film fan alike, and has been the focus of much scholarship in the field of Media Studies.

My interests lie in two quite different archives: the mass media assemblage, like YouTube, that is crowd generated, public, and fleeting; and the personal collection that is at once idiosyncratic and restricted, but preservationist. The latter is, by definition, privately curated with limited access, while that former has been touted as a democratizing force. Reading these two sets of collections against one another, this paper unpacks some of the critical, theoretical, and practical implications of engaging with these informal archives. I will draw upon particular examples from my research on the biography and filmography of the prolific director and producer, Togo Mizrahi, who was active in the Egyptian cinema industry from 1930-1945.

The plots of Egyptian film comedies of the 1930s and 40s often pivot around a character who dress... more The plots of Egyptian film comedies of the 1930s and 40s often pivot around a character who dresses in disguise, adopts another identity, or is mistaken for someone else. This masquerade is commonly intertwined with travel. This paper argues that the journeys of assumed identity in these films serve to explore the boundaries of both nation and identity. These films project an Egyptian national imaginary that is racially, religiously, and ethno-nationally diverse—not to mention queer—a notable alternative to the parochial and heteronormative Egyptian nationalisms ascendant in this period.

, an Egyptian-born Jew of Italian nationality, founded a studio and production company in Alexand... more , an Egyptian-born Jew of Italian nationality, founded a studio and production company in Alexandria. Togo Mizrahi embraced the entire filmmaking processscreenwriting, directing, producing, and, in the early years, acting. Between 1934 and 1938 Mizrahi directed and produced several comedies of mistaken identity-in Arabic and in Greekthat play out in the streets, cafes, shops, homes, clinics, and, of course, beaches of Alexandria. These films represent a culture of coexistence that cuts across class, featuring Greek and shami [Levantine Arab] characters, as well as members of the Francophone Alexandrian elites.

Togo Mizrahi (1901-1986), an Egyptian-born Jew of Italian nationality, was a prolific director an... more Togo Mizrahi (1901-1986), an Egyptian-born Jew of Italian nationality, was a prolific director and producer of popular Arabic-language films from 1930 to 1946. Mizrahi’s films provide an important source for understanding the narratives and images Egyptians received about being modern national subjects. By the time of Mizrahi’s departure from Egypt in 1948, the pluralist nationalism that had characterized the anti-colonial struggle of the 1919 Revolution was being superseded by notions of national identity that excluded minorities. This paper explores how two of Mizrahi’s World War II-era films engaged with and contributed to contemporaneous discussions about who was Egyptian: Fi Layla Mumtira [On a Rainy Night (1939)] and al-Tariq al-Mustaqim [The Straight Path (1943)].

I also argue that although these films lack explicitly Jewish content, they reflect distinctly Jewish anxieties of belonging in Egypt under the British sphere of influence. In On a Rainy Night an itinerary from Milan to Cairo to Omdurman both counterposes rising fascism in Europe with Egypt’s Levantine, multi-racial society, and serves to unsettle the boundaries of the nation in light of Egypt’s colonial designs on Sudan, even as British troops continue to occupy Egypt. In The Straight Path, a character en route from Cairo to Beirut drives his car off a cliff along the Palestinian coast; presumed dead, he loses his identity. I argue that this film reveals Egyptian Jewish anxieties about the impact of Zionist efforts in British Mandatory Palestine on their future in Egypt.

Professor Deborah Starr of Cornell University will address how Mizrahi’s 1930s farces queer both ... more Professor Deborah Starr of Cornell University will address how Mizrahi’s 1930s farces queer both gender and ethno-religious identities in two films, al-Duktur Farhat (Doctor Farahat, 1935) and al-Izz Bahdala (Mistreated By Affluence, 1937), destabilizing prevailing notions of gender and communal identities in 1930s Egypt. She will also argue that these films, by extension, comment upon emerging middle class assumptions about modernity and the nation.

Alexandria has been represented in literature and film as a cosmopolitan city where people of dif... more Alexandria has been represented in literature and film as a cosmopolitan city where people of different religions and nationalities co-existed. Competing parochial nationalist discourses in the mid-Twentieth Century challenged and ultimately undermined this culture of coexistence. I will examine two films that explore the interrelationships between Alexandrian cosmopolitanism and of one of these nationalist discourses, Zionism. Both films, Youssef Chahine's Alexandria... Why? [Iskandariya... Lih? (Egypt, 1978)] and Moshe Mizrahi's The House on Chelouche Street [Ha-bayit bi-rehov shelush (Israel, 1973)], were produced in the 1970s and are set in the 1940s. We will trace the ways that Alexandrian cosmopolitanism and Zionism mutually disrupt but also inform one another in these films. - See more at: http://calendar.duke.edu/events/show?fq=id%3ACAL-8a0870ef-417019a3-0141-9daf1d4c-00002bb1demobedework%40mysite.edu#sthash.WZ6pKjw2.dpuf

Offered at Cornell University, Spring 2022. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class examines modern articu... more Offered at Cornell University, Spring 2022. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class examines modern articulations of identity by and about two distinct Jewish diasporas: Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Sephardic Jews trace their origins to the Iberian Peninsula prior to the end of the 15th century. Mizrahim are Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa until the mid-20th century, and their descendants. We will explore Sephardic and Mizrahi identities in works of fiction, memoirs, essays, poetry and films produced from the mid-twentieth century to the present. We will trace routes of migration across generations, paying particular attention to how texts construct identity in relation to language and place. Works will be drawn from wide geographic distribution including the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and produced in Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Ladino, and Spanish.

Offered at Cornell University, Fall 2021. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examines Near East's r... more Offered at Cornell University, Fall 2021. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examines Near East's rich and diverse literary heritage. We will read a selection of influential and wondrous texts from ancient to modern times, spanning geographically from the Iberian peninsula to Iran. We will explore a range of ancient myths of creation and destruction. We will also trace encounters with otherness in travel narratives. Together we will read and discuss such ancient works as the "The Story of Sinuhe" and "The Epic of Gilgamesh," as well as selections from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur'an. We will explore medieval works such as the "Travels" of Ibn Battuta, the "Shahnameh" of Ferdowsi, and "The Arabian Nights." We will also read Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, and Sonia Nimr's Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands, as well as excerpts from Yochi Brandes's The Orchard. Students will also have the opportunity to research and analyze primary source materials in the collections of Cornell Rare Books and Manuscript Collection, and the Johnson Art Museum. All material is in English translation.

THIS COURSE WAS OFFER VIRTUALLY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN SPRING 2021, COURSE DESCRIPTION In the m... more THIS COURSE WAS OFFER VIRTUALLY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN SPRING 2021, COURSE DESCRIPTION In the media we read about conflict in Iraq between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds; strife between Muslims and Copts in Egypt; rebellion in Syria against the ruling Alawite minority; and violence between Israelis and Palestinians; and the list goes on. This course aims to enrich students' understanding of the diversity of the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), exploring histories of inter-communal contact and conflict. We explore the legacy of the Ottoman Empire and the impact of its dissolution. We will focus our attention on urban centers that fostered inter-communal relations, as well as investigating sites of strife and cases of minority repression. We will read histories, memoirs, and fiction, and view films that help us better understand inter-communal relations, tensions, and conflict. We will also interrogate the terms for exploring a range of distinctions among majority and minority populations including: religious difference (Muslims, Christians, and Jews); divisions of religious rite (Sunni and Shi c a); entho-linguistic minorities (Armenians, Kurds, and Nubians); national identities (Israelis and Palestinians); cultures of origin (Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi Jews). We will also examine how race, racism, and the history of slavery factor into modern discourses of identity in the MENA region. COURSE OBJECTIVES • Identify some minority populations in the MENA region, including minority groups distinguished by: religion; sect; ethno-linguistic identity; national identity; and cultures of origin. • Analyze the concept of "minority." • Understand the 20 th century origins of conflicts between and among majority and minority groups in MENA. • Examine memoir and testimony by witnesses of traumatic experiences • Interpret and analyze film and literary representations of inter-communal relations, tensions, and conflict.

THIS COURSE WAS OFFERED AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY, FALL 2020. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examine... more THIS COURSE WAS OFFERED AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY, FALL 2020. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course examines Near East's rich and diverse literary heritage. We will read a selection of influential and wondrous texts from ancient to modern times, spanning geographically from the Iberian peninsula to Iran. We will explore a range of ancient myths of creation and destruction. We will also trace encounters with otherness in travel narratives. Together we will read and discuss such ancient works as the “The Story of Sinuhe” and “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” as well as selections from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’an. We will explore medieval works such as the “Travels” of Ibn Battuta, the “Shahnameh” of Ferdowsi, and “The Arabian Nights.” We will also read Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, and Sonia Nimr’s Woundrous Journeys in Strange Lands, as well as excerpts from Yochi Brandes’s The Orchard. Students will also have the opportunity to research and analyze primary source materials in the collections of Cornell Rare Books and Manuscript Collection, and the Johnson Art Museum. All material is in English translation.

Offered at Cornell University, Spring 2018. COURSE DESCRIPTION In the media we read about ... more Offered at Cornell University, Spring 2018.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

In the media we read about conflict in Iraq between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds; strife between Muslims and Copts in Egypt; rebellion in Syria against the ruling Alawite minority; and violence between Israelis and Palestinians; and the list goes on. This course aims to enrich students' understanding of the diversity of Middle Eastern countries, exploring histories of inter-communal contact and conflict. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, we explore the legacy of the Ottoman Empire and the impact of its dissolution. We will focus our attention on commercial centers that fostered inter-communal relations, as well as investigating sites of strife and cases of minority repression. We will read histories, memoirs, and fiction, and view films that help us better understand inter-communal relations, tensions, and conflict. We will also interrogate the terms for exploring a range distinctions among majority and minority populations including: religious difference (Muslims, Christians, and Jews); divisions of religious rite (Sunni and Shica); entho-linguistic minorities (Armenians and Kurds); national identities (Israelis and Palestinians); cultures of origin (Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi Jews).

REQUIRED BOOKS

• Maya Schatzmiller, ed. Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies. McQueen’s University Press, 2005.
• Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, & Culture, 1893-1958.
Brandeis University Press, 2013.
• Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (1964). Vintage International, 2104.
• Ali Bader, The Tobacco Keeper. Bloomsbury, 2011.

Course Description This course offers an introduction to films produced in the Middle East. In th... more Course Description This course offers an introduction to films produced in the Middle East. In this class we will view films from the Arab world, including North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as from Israel, Iran, and Turkey. Readings will provide background on the particular cultural and historical contexts in which the films are produced, and the aesthetic traditions from which they emerge and to which they refer. Readings will also serve to familiarize students with approaches to critically interpreting visual media. All films will be screened with English subtitles.

Film industries in the Middle East, as in much of the rest of the world, emerged out of efforts at the national level. In the Arab world and Israel, the film industries reflect upon struggles of national self-determination. The Iranian film industry underwent significant changes following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. We will consider the significance of these national rubrics and how they have shaped the work of filmmakers throughout the Middle East.

But, films reach beyond the boundaries of the nation, and so, we will also consider how these films transcend national borders. On the one hand we will consider limit factors, like censorship, and the role of language and dialect on film viewership and distribution. And, on the other hand, we will consider external forces, such as the influence of foreign film markets in Europe and North America on filmmakers in the Middle East, as well as the effects of foreign financing—both from Europe and the Gulf States.

What does it mean to call individuals, cities, or societies " cosmopolitan? " The term cosmopolit... more What does it mean to call individuals, cities, or societies " cosmopolitan? " The term cosmopolitan has both positive (citizen of the word; combining parts of the world within it) and negative connotations (unaffiliated or disloyal). In our reflection on both the cosmopolitan subject and cosmopolitan spaces, we will also consider how people navigate difference by interrogating the terms " tolerance " and " coexistence. " We will consider power differentials and power relations inherent in all three terms. To address these questions, we will begin by reading and discussing Kant's writings on hospitality, and then consider writings of contemporary theorists such as Martha Nussbaum, Bruce Robbins, David Harvey, Wendy Brown and others. To further our understanding of the implications of these terms, we will examine representations of modern " cosmopolitan " Alexandria. The Egyptian port city, has a long history of rich cultural interaction, immortalized in literature and film. We will read works by: E. M. Forster, Constantin Cavafy, Lawrence Durrell, Edwar al-Kharrat, Yitzhak Gormezano Goren and Randa Jarrar. We will also discuss Youssef Chahine's semi-autobiographical Alexandria film, Alexandria Again and Forever.

COURSE DESCRIPTION This course examines the political, intellectual, and cultural expression of ... more COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course examines the political, intellectual, and cultural expression of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Referred to by the Arab media as “1948 Arabs” or “Arabs within” and by the Israeli media as “Israeli Arabs” or “the Arab sector,” this community is marginalized and often overlooked. Our discussions will be situated within the context of the history of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts: the events of 1948-9 (Israeli Independence, the Nakba, the first Arab-Israeli War); the transformations wrought by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; and the impact on Palestinian-Israelis of the first and second Intifada. We will also look at the status of Palestinian citizens within Israeli civil society: from the era of military rule (1948-1966) to the present. Our primary focus will be exploring words and images produced by Palestinian-Israeli writers, intellectuals, filmmakers, and artists to understand how members of this marginalized community assert their identities as both Palestinian and Israeli. All course materials are in English.

In their acceptance speeches for the Nobel Prize in Literature, both the Egyptian novelist Naguib... more In their acceptance speeches for the Nobel Prize in Literature, both the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz (1988) and the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (2006) situate their work between Eastern and Western literary traditions. Pamuk elaborated: "To write, to read, was like leaving one world to find consolation in the other world's otherness, the strange and the wondrous." In this class, we seek the strange and wondrous otherness, along with the familiar and wondrous sameness in modern literature from the Middle East. We will discuss literary traditions of the modern Middle East, with a focus on works written in Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish. In addition to exploring the tension between Eastern and Western influences in this literature, we will also investigate other issues writers confront: How do literary heritage and religious tradition inflect modern texts? How does literature represent traumatic memories and violence? What is the relationship between politics and aesthetics? Literature and resistance? We will discuss the role have writers played in the social upheavals of the last decade, as well as writers who have been imprisoned for their work. GOALS • Become acquainted with some authors, genres, styles, and critical issues in Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish literatures. • Reflect on the roles that writers play in society. • Consider how literature has contributed to, reflects upon, and been shaped by social and political forces. • Become aware of circumstances and conditions that put writers at risk. • Develop close reading skills by learning to pay attention to the language of texts. • Construct critical readings and analytical arguments about literary texts.

Offered at Cornell University, Fall 2014. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course traces the emerge... more Offered at Cornell University, Fall 2014.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course traces the emergence of identity politics in Israel and the flowering of its cultural expression from the 1970s to the early 2000s. We will discuss why these trends develop when they do, and investigate the interrelationship between politics and culture. Migration is the dominant force driving this Israeli cultural trend. While Jewish migration peaked in the early- and mid-twentieth century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the diversity of countries and cultures of origin of Israeli Jews were explored openly in Israeli culture. This course will examine the expressions of this exploration of diverse Jewish roots, languages, and origins in literature and film. We will discuss how women writers and artists revised and challenged the prior gendered assumptions about national identity. We will also discuss works by Anton Shammas and Emile Habiby who claim a space for Palestinian-Israelis in the Israeli cultural sphere, and who reflect on the repercussions the other large-scale migration in Israeli history: the displacement of Palestinians. We will also explore the role conflict (the Lebanon War, the first and second Intifadas) and international treaties (Israeli peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, the Oslo accords establishing the Palestinian Authority) have on the emergence and articulation of identity politics in Israel.

COURSE MATERIALS:

Castel-Bloom, Orly, Dolly City
Habiby, Emile, The Secret Life of Saeed
Matalon, Ronit, Bliss
Michael, Sami, Refuge
Shabtai, Yaakov, Past Continuous
Shammas, Anton, Arabesques
Yehoshua, A. B. Mr. Mani
Shalev, Meir, Blue Mountain
Katzir, Judith, Dearest Anne