Malumat:
Resources for Research, Writing/Publishing, Teaching, & Performing Arts
Compiled by Kate Wilson
  Arab Stages, Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 2015)
 ©2015 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications

RESEARCH
H-Net (humanities and social sciences online) is an all-around “hub” and “commons” for conference calls, book reviews, discussion, job and post-doc listings, and publication or event announcements, that also extends its reach via list-serves. Based in the University of Michigan, it aims for an international scope. https://networks.h-net.org

H-Net also hosts smaller groups, called “discussion networks,” that function as a homebase for specialized studies, like a list-serve meshed with a blog on a friendly website.  As of yet, no one has launched a network for Arabic Theatre, or any theatre/drama, for that matter. [To do so, one would start here: https://networks.h-net.org/h-net-network-pre-appproval-questionnaire]

Meanwhile, H-Net does host four networks on related topics:

• H-Levant, dedicated the modern history and culture of the Mashreq, or Eastern Mediterranean (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and parts of Turkey). https://networks.h-net.org/h-levant
• H-Maghreb, about North Africa. https://networks.h-net.org/h-maghrib
• H-AMCA — modern and contemporary art from the Arab world. https://networks.h-net.org/h-amca
• H-Gender-Middle East — an international network for social scientists and humanists interested in scholarly exchange on issues of gender in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. It aims to build a network in tune with shifting geographical articulations and to bring together gender-focused issues from within a wide range of (inter) disciplinary positions. https://networks.h-net.org/h-gender-mideast

CONFERENCES
Organization: Arab-US Association of Communication Educators (AUSACE)
Theme: Global Trends and Prospects in Mass Communication
Location: Doha
Conference date: October 24-26, 2015
Deadline: Abstract due April 30; full paper due August 31, 2015
Languages: English and Arabic.
Website: http://www.ausace.org/international-conferences/

Call: Topics related to Media in the Middle East, including:

• Status of media studies
• Culture, Media, and Identity
• New trends in Audience research
• Media education
• Political Economy of media systems

Submit:  Abstract (150-250 words), English or Arabic, by April 30. For details see website (above).

Organization: The Hollywood and the World Project: 3rd Global Meeting
Theme:  The Weaponising of Cinema: Hollywood, Propaganda and Portrayals of Enemies of the State/s
Location:  Oxford, United Kingdom
Conference date: Friday, July 24 – Sunday, July 26, 2015
Deadline: Abstract by July 5; full submission by July 10, 2015.

Call for Presentations:
The Hollywood and the World Project at Mansfield College calls for submissions that deal with any aspect of Hollywood and propaganda that deals with the on screen depiction of “enemies of the state”, whether real, imagined or “out-of-this-world”, both external or internal to the “homeland”; the technical innovations used to facilitate this, in terms of cinemascope, sound, 3D and immersive cinema; publicity and support systems used to disseminate such material, such as global merchandising, social media, the Oscars etc.; backers and sources of funding utilised, such as governmental, CIA, religious groups, corporate entities etc.; forms of resisitance and oppositional cinema like self-funded film, world cinema, alternative forms visual narrative.

Possible topics for submissions:

1. Depictions of the Enemy in Ongoing Conflicts (both during and after the conflict): e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, ISIL.
2. Depictions of Enemies in Historical Conflicts
3. Enemies at Home
4. Modes, Dissemination and Immersion: The construction of stereotypes, advertising, publicity, social media, gaming, music, etc
5. Resistance: Efforts to regulate the way Hollywood presents enemies (activism/protests/boycotts; progressive alternatives).

Possible forms of proposals:

• Alternative presentation styles that encourage engagement
• Pre-formed panels
• Short workshops
• Practitioner-based activities or how-to sessions
• Also: performances; short film screenings; photographic essays; installations; interactive talks

Submission: send abstract (300 word) by Friday 5th June 2015. If a proposal is accepted, a full draft paper (up to 3000 words) must be submitted by Friday 10th July 2015.

For details, see: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/hollywood-and-the-world/call-for-presentations-3/

WRITING & PUBLISHING
Journal: Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies
Launched in 2005 and issued three times a year,  the peer-reviewed JMEWS “advances Middle East gender, sexuality, and women’s studies through the contributions of academics, artists, and activists from around the globe in the interpretive social sciences and humanities. JMEWS is a venue for region-specific research informed by transnational feminist, gender, and sexuality scholarship. Editors encourage submission of work that employs historical, ethnographic, literary, textual, and visual analyses and methodologies. JMEWS also includes book reviews, review essays (focused on art exhibits, panels of significance, films, two or more scholarly books, fiction, or state of the field), and dissertation abstracts that highlight theoretical innovation in region-focused gender and sexuality studies.

Deadline:  June 15 2015
Theme Issue: The Gender and Sexuality of Militarization, War, and Violence

Inviting scholars from any discipline or interdisciplinary area to submit papers any topic related to the gender and sexuality of militarization, war, and violence, in an area-specific scope, from any time period.  Essays should ground arguments on primary sources (literary, visual, archival, textual, ethnographic, artistic, etc.) and to engage with relevant transnational gender and sexuality scholarship. For details, see:  http://www.jmews.org/call-for-papers-the-gender-and-sexuality-of-militarization-war-and-violence/

Journal:  Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics.
Alif is a refereed, annual, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at The American University in Cairo. Each issue revolves around a theme or a problematic, bringing together the views and approaches of scholars from all over the world. http://www.aucegypt.edu/huss/eclt/alif/Pages/CallforArticlesAlif37.aspx

Next Special Issue:  “Literature and Journalism” (2016)
Guest Editor: Hala Halim
Languages: Arabic, English, or French
Deadline: Abstract (300 words) due October 1, 2015; article (5000-10,000 words) due May 1, 2016

CALL:
This issue of Alif is devoted to exploring the intersections between literature and journalism in a broad comparatist compass. A range of perspectives from different disciplines compels our attention to that intersection: Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities” in relation to the newspaper; Walter Benjamin’s flâneur who dabbles, among other things, in journalese; and media studies’ “literary journalism.” Alif solicits articles that adopt new theoretically informed approaches to the topic of this special issue. Many writers, such as Gabriel García Márquez, have worked as journalists: How has each of these roles inflected the other and what practices of the public intellectual might we uncover if we attend to the intersections between the two domains? What uncharted literary histories might we map by attending to the labor of writer-editors in editing creative writing? What role have literary and cultural journals (or weeklies) played in promoting experimental work, giving expression to the sensibility of a literary generation or trend, supporting transnational reading publics (such as diasporas and exiles), and promoting non-Eurocentric comparatism? What understudied aspects and archives of modernity, for example the Nahda (revival) in the Arab context, would come to light if we attended to literary journalism, such as the impact of serialization on the early Arabic novel and the work of such figures as Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq? In more recent times, what generic effect have creative non-fiction, e-zines, and blogs had on our notions of what constitutes a literary text? What new phenomena relating to the intersection between literature and journalism has the movement of protest in the Arab world and elsewhere yielded? What is the influence of literary reviews (as distinct from criticism) on reception?

Contact: Editor Hala Halim: halimalif37@gmail.com
Journal staff: alifecl@aucegypt.edu

Journal:  Translation Review
Launched in 1978, the journal is issued by the Center for Translation Studies (University of Texas, Dallas) to provide “translators, scholars, and readers a forum to cultivate a dialogue about the importance of translation in a globalized world, to illuminate the challenging difficulties involved in transplanting a text from a foreign culture into English, and to increase the visibility and status of the translator in our contemporary world.  Translation Review serves as a major critical and scholarly journal to facilitate cross-cultural communication through the refined art and craft of literary translations.” http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/utrv20/current

Deadline:  Rolling. Three issues per year.
Editors: Rainer Schulte, Dennis Kratz, Charles Hatfield

Call:
Translation Review seeks interviews with translators, profiles of writers and their English translatiions, profiles of publishers, as well as academic essays (1000 to 7000 words) generally addressing “the history, practice, and theory of translation broadly defined,” and in particular, focused on:

• The translator’s craft
• The theoretical and practical dimensions of translation
• Multiple translations
• The craft of reviewing and evaluating translations
• The teaching of literature in translation
• Translation in the digital age

For query and submission details see: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/utrv20/current

Popular Magazine:  Kalimat [“Words”]
Launched in 2011, this arts & culture lifestyle magazine is “not necessarily about Arab affairs and culture,” but oriented toward Arab “creatives” in the region. Kalimat encourage new writers to send queries of work aimed for general readers, covering 4 main areas (called “dossiers”):  Current Affairs; Culture; Art & Design; and New Media. http://www.kalimatmagazine.com/magazine

The invite a range of genres:

• Interviews with “creative producers” in performance, film, video, and visual arts (design, sculpture, drawing, photography, etc.).
• Reviews (films, books, music, theatre) of 500-750 words,
• Travel writing and photo-essays
• Op-ed, longer news or personal essays (up to 2500 words)

To Submit:
See http://www.kalimatmagazine.com/submissions for specifications for email, bio, headshot, CV, etc.  Please note that contributors are not paid.

TEACHING
Middle East Syllabi.
University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center posts syllabi across multiple facets, beyond the 101 Introduction to topics of Iranian Youth,  Literary Heritage, Migrations, and of couse politics.  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/mec/courses/syllabi

PERFORMING ARTS RESOURCES
Guide to Funding for Artist Travel and Cultural Mobility in the Arab World

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, in conjunction with a host of organizations, has published this international guide to funding to help artists and arts organization travel, tour, and conduct cultural exchange projects. The compilation spans Asia, Europe, the US, as well as a section covering 13 Arab countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Free download from http://www.us-culturalmobility.org/

For more on the associated Arab organizaton, Arab Education Forum (based in Jordan), see http://almoultaqa.com/defaulten.aspx

Arab Stages
Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 2015)
©2015 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications

Founders: Marvin Carlson and Frank Hentschker

Editor-in-Chief: Marvin Carlson

Editorial and Advisory Board: Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Dina Amin, Khalid Amine, Hazem Azmy, Dalia Basiouny, Katherine Donovan, Masud Hamdan, Sameh Hanna, Rolf C. Hemke, Katherine Hennessey, Areeg Ibrahim, Jamil Khoury, Dominika Laster, Margaret Litvin, Rebekah Maggor, Safi Mahfouz, Robert Myers, Michael Malek Naijar, Hala Nassar, George Potter, Juan Recondo, Nada Saab, Asaad Al-Saleh, Torange Yeghiazarian, Edward Ziter.

Managing Editor: Joy Arab

Table of Content
Essays

• Science Fiction in the Arab World: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Voyage to Tomorrow (Rihlatun ilal-ghad) by Rani Bhargav
• Tawfik al-Hakim and the Social Responsibility of the Artist by Majeed Mohammed Midhin
• Junun: Poetics in the Discourse of Protest and Love by Rafika Zahrouni
• Ritual and Myth in Dalia Basiouny’s Magic of Borolos by Amal Aly Mazhar
• Staging the Self: Autobiography in the Theatre of Sa`dallah Wannous by Ali Souleman
• The Arab Theatre Festival by Jaouad Radouan
• France’s Théâtre d’al-Assifa: An Arab-based Alternative Theatre Model by Magdi Youssef
• A Dramatic Anticipation of the Arab Spring and a Dramatic Reflection Upon It by Eiman Tunsi
• Rania Khalil’s Flag Piece by Dalia Basiouny and Marvin Carlson
• Silk Road Solos: A Three-Thread Performative Stitch by Jamil Khoury

Short Plays

• Excerpts from Jihad Against Violence: Oh ISIS Up Yours! by Fawzia Afzal-Khan
• Alternative Dramaturgy for Jihad Against Violence: Oh ISIS Up Yours! By Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Nesrin Alrefaai, Katherine Mezur
• ReOrient Theatre Festival 2015:
  Bitterenders by Hannah Khalil
  Lost Kingdom by Hassan Abdulrazzak
  Picking Up The Scent by Yussef El Guindi
  The House by Tala Manassah & Mona Mansour

Reviews

• Edward Ziter’s Political Performance in Syria – A Book Review by Safi Mahmoud Mahfouz
• The Gap Between Generations: The Revolt of the Young: Essays by Tawif al-Hakim– A Book Review by Michael Malek Najjar

Announcements

• Malumat: Resources for Research, Writing/Publishing, Teaching, & Performing Arts compiled by Kate C. Wilson

www.arabstages.org
arabstages@gc.cuny.edu

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Frank Hentschker, Executive Director
Marvin Carlson, Director of Publications
Rebecca Sheahan, Managing Director