ArabishWay

Rajiv Mohabir and Mortada Gzar - Live at Elliott Bay
2022-09-07 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Noted poet and translator Rajiv Mohabir, along with Seattle-based Iraqi writer Mortada Gzar (more on him below) make this welcome September visit for the paperback of Roajiv Mohabir’s much-acclaimed prose debut, Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir. Recipient of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (which has helped launch several excellent books), this was also a Lambda and PEN Book Book Award finalist, and received a 2021 Indies FOREWORD Award for LGBTQ+ non-fiction.

Venice LIVE [Virtual] Walking Tour: Old Jewish District and Old Arab District
2022-09-13 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join our live stream walk to enjoy one of the oldest jewish districts around Europe.
We will go behind the scenes of fascinating stories and amazing colors, the tour will hit the Cannareggio district, including the ancient arab district.
Join our walk to discover the lovely venice atmosphere.

Authors SUSAN MUADDI DARRAJ, MARCUS BURKE and JUDY BOLTON-FASMAN discuss identity and race
2022-09-13 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Pen Parentis Literary Salons invites you to an exciting LIVECAST featuring literary readings and intimate discussion with 3 amazing authors about themes of IDENTITY AND RACE in their writing and life.

12.1 Meet The Postcard Women! by the Zay Initiative
2022-09-20 20:00 - 21:30 (Asia/Dubai)
Sit down and make yourself uncomfortable: Meet the postcard women in conversation with Dr Reem El Mutwalli in this special 90 min webinar.

About this event

Meet founder of the Imaginarium postcard project, artist and art historian Salma Ahmad Caller, and the artists, experts and researchers – Afsoon, Alia Derouiche Cherif, Hamida Zourgui, Hala Ghellali, and CritTeam’s Eugenia López Reus & Miguel Jaime, who all have been involved in the Making The Postcard Women’s Imaginarium project since 2018.
These artists each have personal histories entangled with the narratives of the Postcard Women. They have been making work in response to colonial postcards of women from the late 1800s and early 1900s that were posted from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.
Their work challenges and questions the racial stereotypes that these postcards create, decolonises the lens, and takes a deep dive into the MENA region and cross-cultural legacies of heritage and adornment that make this archive so fascinating, important and problematic.
In reclaiming the Postcard Women these artists ask us to sit down and make ourselves uncomfortable by looking closely at how women from these regions have been constructed as marginalised, exoticised primitive ‘others’ and to now take the women out of the one-dimensional colonial space-time and re-contextualise them. And in so doing to interrogate not only the orientalist and colonial frames surrounding each woman but our own complicity in maintaining the hierarchical typology that these cards were part of instilling.
REGISTERING WILL GIVE YOU ACCESS TO THE 90 MINUTE LIVE SESSION, A RECORDED VERSION TO CATCH UP IN YOUR OWN TIME WHICH WILL BE SENT TO YOU WITHIN 24 HOURS AFTER THE WEBINAR
OUR GUEST SPEAKERS:
Salma Ahmad Caller was born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and a British mother and grew up in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. She now lives in the UK. An artist, art historian and writer, Salma considers herself a disruptive body, a hybrid of cultures and faiths. Her work explores her mixed- race identity, cross-cultural experiences, text/image relationships and forms of embodiment, materiality and memory, drawing on personal intimate family histories and vulnerability as a way to destabilise larger narratives. Uncanny juxtapositions and hybrid forms are used to investigate how the private and political collide and intertwine, using techniques of collage, assemblage, drawing, watercolour, photography, projection, installation/sound and more recently film. Salma also writes art theory, poetry and creative non-fiction. Her theoretical background in research on the meanings of ornament in non-Western cultures through frameworks of anthropology of art and cognitive science/physiology, are used to decolonise and break down boundaries, categories, typologies and terminology that characterise hegemonic colonial and patriarchal formations. With a Masters in art history and art theory, and a background in medicine and pharmacology, and several years teaching cross-cultural ways of seeing via non-Western artefacts at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, she now works as an independent artist and teacher.
https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com
Afsoon is an Iranian born, London based artist. She works predominantly in collage but has used various media such as linocut, watercolour, photography, ceramic, pastel and etching. She usually spends long periods researching her chosen subject to make pieces that often combine text with images while merging Occident and Orient ideas. Her work is humorous, playful and sophisticated and feels simultaneously familiar and foreign.
Afsoon has taken part in numerous solo and group shows, biennales and museum exhibitions. Her pieces can be found in prominent collections such as the British Museum, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum), and the Berger/YSL Collection.
www.afsoon.co.uk
Alia Derouiche Cherif is a visual artist born in 1969, who grew up in Tunis. In 1991, Alia obtained her MA in interior design, and in 1997 a doctorate in science techniques in arts at the University ITAAUT. She has been teaching fashion design for over 20 years and has participated in various key group exhibitions in Tunisia – Bardo museum, Alain Nadaud gallery, Musk & Amber gallery, Elbirou gallery, Effesto gallery, Le Cap gallery, City of Culture of Tunisia.
Alia’s outstanding solo exhibitions took place at the Musk & Amber Gallery Tunisia, in September 2018 and 2019, and again in October 2021. Her rich work collages together many layers of Tunisian cultural heritage both past and contemporary. Her painting fiercely reclaims ornamental techniques from Orientalist painting by asserting the complex meanings and cultural contexts of Islamic and multi ethnic Tunisian patterns and calligraphic forms.
CritTeam (Eugenia López Reus and Miguel Jaime) is an art-research duo that emerged in the UAE in 2013. Their work explores intersections of art, architecture and culture, questioning common notions of tradition, ornament, and identity. CritTeam’s work is rooted in both digital and traditional media such as photography, photo collage and drawing, which they expand to include theoretical writings, video, installations, and design proposals. Their practice explores post avant-garde discourses of colonialism, orientalism, modernism, and non-western ornamental art. They both hold PhDs in architectural design and have been educators and researchers at universities of Europe, America and the Middle East. Their work has been published and exhibited at various institutions in Europe and the Middle East such as the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016 & 2017), the University of Edinburgh (2017), The XIV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (Santander 2018), The 8th Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art WTA at Museum of Garment and Ethnologic Heritage Research Center (Madrid 2019), “The best design of the year” at Barcelona Design Museum DHUB (2021), among others. CritTeam has been nominated for the Art FAD Awards 2021 for best Artistic Creation by FAD’s Artists and Artisans’ Association. Since 2018 CritTeam is based in Barcelona.
Hamida Zourgui is a French-Algerian mixed media artist based in London. After completing her MA in art history and sociology she worked in museums and art spaces as a mediator and free lance art journalist. Growing up in France with an Algerian background has always played a major role in the construction of her identity, which then became the core and heart of her artistic expression. Hamida’s mixed media artwork focuses on the creation of bridges between her two cultures. Dual citizenship is echoed in the duality of references, and in the inspiration behind her themes and preoccupations. For Hamida her work is crucially an homage to colonised women and colonised bodies. Orientalism is a word anchored in her research, as it is often the only lens employed to represent/misrepresent Algerian women in art and imagery.
Hamida’s digital and analogue photographs are incorporated and transformed within collage works. These Arabic pop-art inspired transformations aim to narrate a new Algerian woman, giving her a renewed potent visual presence. Nostalgia, womanhood, and colonisation are three themes to constantly grapple with and reconcile with present realities of Algerian women.
As part of the Muslim female artists collective VariantSpace Hamida has had her work shown in London and New York. Her talks were an important part of the Pop Art from North Africa Collective exhibition at the P21 Gallery in London.
Hala Ghellali was born and grew up in Tripoli, Libya. She lived in France where she completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in comparative literature. After several years of teaching at the University of Tripoli, she lived in Italy, Egypt and Syria before settling in the USA. She is particularly interested in Libyan history, cultural heritage, vernacular poetry and the current art scene. Hala’s family ancestral connection to the art of weaving and traditional clothes has been a source of inspiration for her own research and work. Passionate about Libyan adornment and jewelry making, she has extensively researched its history, meanings and ties to neighboring countries. Her research and writing also embrace photography with a focus on orientalist photos and postcards made in local studios during the italian colonization. She has also co-curated an exhibit on jewelry and orientalist photos and postcards.
Her book on Libyan adornment and jewelry, the outcome of years of intensive research will soon be published.
FOUNDER OF THE ZAY INITIATIVE
Dr. Reem Tariq El Mutwalli, is a published author, lead curator and public speaker. With over 30 years of experience, she is an expert consultant in Islamic art and architecture, interior design, historic dress and UAE heritage.
She is also the founder of the Zay Initiative. A non-profit UK registered initiative advancing the preservation of cultural heritage, through the collection, documentation and digital archiving of Arab historical attire and their stories. Our goal is to empower and sustain global cross-cultural dialogue to inspire creative minds.

The Magical Writer: QTIPOC Authors Dissect Magic Realism
2022-10-01 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
As a genre, magic realism feels like a blessing and a curse. It offers space to marginalized folks to tell their stories without feeling triggered by it, and open space for a richer approach to imagination. Yet, it also feels like a stamp of approval for us to reach a wider audience, an evaluation of the magical Indian, the capable Black, the exotic Arab, or the mysterious Asian troupes.
In this panel, we will be discussing the origin of the term, asking ourselves if we identify with it, and looking at the relationship between QTIPOC authors and the way the term is understood by the mainstream White, heteronormative society.
Curator Danny Ramadan brings together some of the most exciting voices in Canada: Joshua Whitehead (Johnny Appleseed, Making Love with the Land), Larissa Lai (The Tiger Flu, Iron Goddess of Mercy), and Rasiqra Revulva (Cephalopography 2.0).
Curated and moderated by Danny Ramadan

Rusha Latif with Isma'il Kushkush
2022-10-06 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
This virtual program brings to readers here (everywhere) the work of Rusha Latif, a San Francisco Bay area writer/researcher and a first-generation Egyptian American. Travels and research undertaken in Cairo a decade ago and since have now become her new book, Tahrir’s Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution (American University in Cairo Press).
“As its excellent subtitle indicates, this book debunks many myths related to the so-called leaderless revolutions through meticulous fieldwork investigation of the young leaders of Egypt’s 2011 uprising in its Cairene epicenter. It is a much-needed contribution to the study of the twenty-first century’s pattern of uprisings, showing how a popular movement that goes beyond an ephemeral explosion of anger is necessarily led by more than a virtual network.”―Gilbert Achcar.
“In a moment characterized by the revival of authoritarian regimes and democratic setbacks, this book is a welcome analysis that puts youth activism in post-2011 Egypt in a revealing historic, sociological, and political perspective. Using primary sources, including in-depth interviews with the youth leaders of the January 25 Revolution, Latif’s work offers indispensable insights into the mobilization strategies and trajectories of the youth groups that resisted three successive regimes between 2011 and 2013. Her book powerfully explains how youth activism has forever changed Egyptian politics.”―Amr Hamzawy.
“Rusha Latif . . . embedded herself with young activists and writes about what the world can learn from a defeated revolt.”―Leila Fadel, NPR.
Isma’il Kushkush will join Rusha in conversation. He is a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, CNN, the Associated Press (AP), Guernica Magazine, and others. He has covered political, economic, social and cultural stories from Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, Sweden, Israel the Palestinian territories and the United States. He is currently based in Khartoum, Sudan.

Artist Talk: Yousr Shaltout
2022-10-09 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Yousr Shaltout is an Egyptian /Lebanese medical student and Tatreez artist based in New Jersey. Yousr is self taught, and first fell in love with the art as well as its political and cultural significance four years ago. In 2021, Yousr was awarded the NJ Council of the Arts Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant. Under the apprenticeship, Yousr created her first thobe under the mastery of Wafa Ghnaim of The Tatreez Institute (Tatreez & Tea). Yousr’s next project is to design, sew, and embroider a thobe for her medical school graduation in 2024 as the culmination of her skills in the craft. It will combine the various styles of embroidery from Palestine and those from her roots in Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria to showcase that Tatreez is an art form shared across the Arab world with distinct regional and cultural styles and motifs.
Yousr is the proud owner of a small business selling tatreez patterns and tatreez inspired items. You can support her work at tatreezing.etsy.com or by following her journey at her Instagram @tatreezing.
Learn more about Yousr’s thobe project and concept, by registering to this artist talk.

"Unruly Jewels - Neither Muslim Nor Jewish" by the Zay Initiative (online)
2022-10-11 20:00 - 21:00 (Asia/Dubai)
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, joins Dr Reem El Mutwalli & Salma Ahmad Caller for a Dialogue “Unruly Jewels – Neither Muslim Nor Jewish”

About this event

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay joins Dr Reem El Mutwalli & the founder of the Imaginarium postcard project, artist and art historian Salma Ahmad Caller for a dialogue on “Unruly Jewels – Neither Muslim Nor Jewish”
Looking at some photographs, postcards and jewels, Azoulay will question the investment of the French colonial project in the de-algerisation and de-arabisation of the Jews in Muslim countries. One of the signs of their “success” in turning the indigenous into “modern type” was the withdrawal of the Jews from wearing heavy jewels and clothing with gold thread embroidery, through the production of these gold threads and jewels was a craft Jews used to practice for centuries. The disappearance of the jewels from their bodies was not a simple change in mode, but rather a disruption of a world in which craft and craft making was essential for world building and for world maintenance, and was embedded in guilds that were part of social fabrics of mutual care.
OUR GUEST SPEAKERS:
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, professor of Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature (Brown University), film essayist and curator of archives and exhibitions. Her books include: Potential History – Unlearning Imperialism (Verso, 2019), Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012), The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008). Among her films: Un-documented: Unlearning Imperial Plunder (2019), Civil Alliances, Palestine, 47-48 (2012). Among her exhibitions Errata (Fundació Tàpies, 2019, HKW, Berlin, 2020), and Enough! The Natural Violence of New World Order, (F/Stop photography festival, Leipzig, 2016).
Salma Ahmad Caller was born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and a British mother and grew up in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. She now lives in the UK. An artist, art historian and writer, Salma considers herself a disruptive body, a hybrid of cultures and faiths. Her work explores her mixed- race identity, cross-cultural experiences, text/image relationships and forms of embodiment, materiality and memory, drawing on personal intimate family histories and vulnerability as a way to destabilise larger narratives. Uncanny juxtapositions and hybrid forms are used to investigate how the private and political collide and intertwine, using techniques of collage, assemblage, drawing, watercolour, photography, projection, installation/sound and more recently film. Salma also writes art theory, poetry and creative non-fiction. Her theoretical background in research on the meanings of ornament in non-Western cultures through frameworks of anthropology of art and cognitive science/physiology, are used to decolonise and break down boundaries, categories, typologies and terminology that characterise hegemonic colonial and patriarchal formations. With a Masters in art history and art theory, and a background in medicine and pharmacology, and several years teaching cross-cultural ways of seeing via non-Western artefacts at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, she now works as an independent artist and teacher.

Arab American and Muslim Representation
2022-10-12 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
We invite you to ParentChild+’s virtual series Windows, Mirrors & Doors, where children’s book authors, educators, and advocates will lead us in a compelling discussion on Arab American and Muslim representation in children’s literature. The discussion will shine a light on the impact representation has on the well-being and social-emotional development of Arab American and Muslim children. It will highlight the importance of all children and families learning about Arab Americans and the many continents, countries, cultures, and religions they represent; Muslim families and the many countries and cultures they represent; the importance of Arab and Muslim children seeing themselves in the books they encounter; the ways in which we can equip parents and caregivers to access these books and stories and share them with the children in their lives, and how we can all advocate for improvements in Arab American and Muslim representation.

The Evolution of Symbolism in Palestinian Embroidery (8 Week Series)
2022-10-13
“The Evolution of Palestinian Symbolism” is an 8-part art historical lecture series detailing the various stages of motif symbolism and ritual in Palestinian society, spanning hundreds of years into history. The motifs are divided into categories of ancient, traditional, curvilinear, contemporary and political. The primary objectives of this course are to; 1) understand the iconographical approach to studying art history and it’s limitations in Palestinian embroidery, 2) the evolution of motifs throughout time, 3) learning the evolutionary context of motifs throughout time, 4) the use of each symbol and the significance of its meaning in Palestinian culture, and 5) the contemporary context of Palestinian embroidery, and an appropriate way to use symbolism in your study.

The Road to Representation: Arab Americans in Office
2022-10-14 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
In-person at AANM
Free with RSVP
Register for in-person attendance | Register for virtual attendance
Arab American representation in public office positions has increased in recent years, reflective of the growing community. This panel features Arab Americans in a variety of governmental and public office positions, both in the spotlight and behind the scenes, as they work towards a present and future that includes the full participation of all Arab Americans. Join us to hear their personal stories and journeys along the road to representation.

Reviving The Jericho ‘Thobe Ubb’
2022-10-22 11:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Date/Time: October 22, 2-3:30pm EST
Format: Virtual Event
Fee: Sliding Scale $10 or $20
The SWANA Style Saturday Series is a lecture series focused on exploring the traditional dress of cultural communities living in SWANA (Southwest Asia & North Africa). The aim of this series is to bring awareness to styles that have generally been left out of the historical record, however have great historical origination stories. Our cultural memory must preserve this knowledge for the next generation.
Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited area in the world. Today, it is the last Palestinian city before crossing the Allenby Bridge to Jordan. Geological and geographic factors have contributed to its long history of survival and an ideal place for settlement, making it a source of envy and coveted possession for invaders who have seen Jericho as the key to controlling Palestine. In the oldest continuously inhabited place on earth, what is the oldest traditional dress worn by the residents? And, is it still being worn today?
Learn the answers to these questions, and more, at the next installment of SWANA Style Series, titled “Reviving The Jericho ‘Thobe Ubb’. Learn about Wafa’s most recent discovery of the Thobe Ubb at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a treasure that has yet to be identified in the museum’s catalogue.
Please note that you are welcome to register for the lecture and watch the recording at a later time, because it will be recorded and sent to all registrants within 24 hours of the live event. However, the recording will be available for a limited time.

Nubian Architect Menna Agha [afikra Conversations]
2022-10-28 07:00 - 08:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Dr. Menna Agha is an architect and researcher who has recently been coordinating the spatial justice agenda at the Flanders Architecture Institute in Belgium. She joins the Azrieli School to promote pedagogy and research in the newly established area of Design and Spatial Justice. Menna holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Antwerp, and a Master of Arts in Gender and Design from Köln International School of Design. In 2019/2020, she was the Spatial Justice Fellow and a visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon. She is a third-generation displaced Fadicha Nubian, a legacy that infuses her research interests in race, gender, space, and territory. Among her publications are: Nubia still exists: The Utility of the Nostalgic Space; The Non-work of the Unimportant: The shadow economy of Nubian women in displacement villages; and Liminal Publics, Marginal Resistance.

"Madafeh": Hanan Awad, photographer, essayist (virtual)
2022-10-30 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Event Occurs Every Sunday-Register Once; Attend All.

The program begins at 12 Noon US EDT; 7:00 PM Palestine Time.
Please join us for a virtual session of open discussion about Palestinian topics.
Please click here to register for this event.
In 1948, the year of al-Nakba or “the catastrophe”, over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland through militarized displacement resulting in the depopulation and destruction of over 400 Palestinian villages. Each village has a unique story regarding the specifics of how it was attacked and how its inhabitants were forcibly expelled. For the most part, the villages were totally destroyed – leaving only a few that stand to this day. Ayn Hawd and Ayn Karem are these unique cases of villages escaping the brutal destruction that sought to erase the physical signs of the Palestinan presence throughout the region. While the houses and buildings of these two villages were left standing, the actual Palestinian inhabitants were displaced and are forbidden to return. The stories of Ayn Karem and Ayn Hud are critical for understanding the situation in Palestine as one of settler-colonialism.

SWANA Style Series: Revival of the Jericho Thobe Ubb
2022-11-05 11:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The SWANA Style Saturday Series is a lecture series focused on exploring the traditional dress of cultural communities living in SWANA (Southwest Asia & North Africa). The aim of this series is to bring awareness to styles that have generally been left out of the historical record, however have great historical origination stories. Our cultural memory must preserve this knowledge for the next generation.
Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited area in the world. Today, it is the last Palestinian city before crossing the Allenby Bridge to Jordan. Geological and geographic factors have contributed to its long history of survival and an ideal place for settlement, making it a source of envy and coveted possession for invaders who have seen Jericho as the key to controlling Palestine. In the oldest continuously inhabited place on earth, what is the oldest traditional dress worn by the residents? And, is it still being worn today?
Learn the answers to these questions, and more, at the next installment of SWANA Style Series, titled “Reviving The Jericho ‘Thobe Ubb’. Learn about Wafa’s most recent discovery of the Thobe Ubb at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a treasure that has yet to be identified in the museum’s catalogue.
Please note that you are welcome to register for the lecture and watch the recording at a later time, because it will be recorded and sent to all registrants within 24 hours of the live event. However, the recording will be available for a limited time.

Afikra: Founder of Tatreez and Tea Wafa Ghnaim [Outline]
2022-12-14 07:00 - 08:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Join us as we interview Wafa Ghnaim, who founded an educational arts initiative focused on the preservation, documentation and research of textiles in the SWANA region, on our afikra Outline series.

The Lives Along the Nile (5 series class)
2023-01-23 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Welcome to another series in attempting to better understand the Middle East and North Africa yet, this time we are traveling south to north with the Nile River. We will go on an expedition (no need for passport, inoculations or tents for camping or visas) from the origins of Nile to the Mediterranean Sea. We will read history books, journalists’ accounts and novelists describe the river and the inhabitants along its banks. Join us on this journey along the Nile River. According to the National Geographic: “The Nile River flows from south to north through eastern Africa. It begins in the rivers that flow into Lake Victoria (located in modern-day Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya), and empties into the Mediterranean Sea more than 6,600 kilometers (4,100 miles) to the north, making it one of the longest rivers in the world. The Nile River was critical to the development of ancient Egypt. In addition to Egypt, the Nile runs through or along the border of 10 other African countries, namely, Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. Its three main tributaries are the White Nile, the Blue Nile, and the Atbara.”
Five Mondays: January 23, February 6 and 20, March 6 and 27 from 1 to 3 p.m. ET Online
1. 23rd January 2023: River of the Gods – Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the search for the source of the Nile by Candice Millard (9780385543101)
2. 6th February: The Black Nile by Dan Morrison (9780143119371)
3. 20th February: God Dies by the Nile by Nawal al Saadawy (9781783605965)
4. 6th March: Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz (9780385423335)
5. 27th March: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (9780063139848)
AND/OR
The Fugitives by Jamal Mahjoub (9781838850821)

Continuous Trauma and Social Devastation: Gaza and Washington leaders in discussion on social trauma and healing
2023-01-26 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | St Marks Cathedral, 1245 Tenth Avenue East, Seattle, WA, 98102-4398, United States
The Gaza Strip’s visiting lead psychiatrist updates us in person on current conditions there with local leaders and audience questions and reflections on “glocal”social divisions building best ways forward together.

Trauma & Hope Tour “Continuous Trauma and Social Devastation – or Caring for ALL?"
2023-01-26 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | St Marks Cathedral, 1245 Tenth Avenue East, Seattle, WA, 98102-4398, United States
FREE

The Rachel Corrie Foundation is honored to be one of multiple co-sponsors of this Seattle event featuring Dr. Yassar Abu-Jamei, who has led the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme – a leading Palestinian non-governmental organization providing mental health services to the Gaza Strip – for fifteen difficult years. During this time, those in Gaza have suffered daily from an international blockade, and continuing military threats and raids by the Israeli army.

The event, organized by the Massachusetts-based Gaza Mental Health Foundation, will also feature the following local leaders speaking about social and racial disparity globally and in Washington State:

Imraan Siddiqi, Executive Director, Council of American-Islamic Relations (Washington Chapter)
The Honorable Damon Shadid, Seattle Municipal Court judge
Dr. Jonathan Kanter, Director, Center for the Science of Social Connection (University of Washington)
Dr. Brian Baird, psychologist, and U.S. Congressman for 12 year

In person and also on zoom: register for zoom: http://bit.ly/3k1Aflv

Who Can Speak on Palestine?
2023-01-30 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
The Foundation for Middle East Peace & Al Shabaka invite you to the first episode in our four-part series, Learning and Unlearning Palestine.
Who Can Speak on Palestine?
Monday, January 30th, 2023
12pm Eastern
featuring Nour Joudah (UC Berkeley), Dina Matar (SOAS, University of London), in conversation with Maha Nassar (University of Arizona)
RSVP Here
This conversation will examine the history and current reality of the erasure of the Palestinian narrative, the delegitimization of Palestinian voices in mainstream spaces, and possibilities for change.
Speakers:
Nour Joudah completed her PhD in Geography at UCLA. She is currently the UC Presidential Postdoctoral fellow at UC-Berkeley. Nour’s work examines mapping practices and indigenous survival and futures in settler states, highlighting how indigenous countermapping is a both cartographic and decolonial praxis.
Dina Matar is Professor of Political Communication at SOAS, University of London, where she is also chair of the Centre for Palestine Studies. Her teaching and research are informed by a non-Western centric approach to addressing communication and politics, with a particular focus on the marginal and the periphery. She is the author of What it Means to be Palestinian (2010), and co-author of The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication (2014). She is co-editor of Narrating Conflict in the Middle East (2013) and Gaza as Metaphor (2016) and is currently co-editing a volume titled Producing Palestine with Helga Tawil-Souri.
Maha Nassar is an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, where she specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of the modern Arab world. Her award-winning book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017), examines how Palestinian intellectuals connected to global decolonization movements during the mid-twentieth century. She is working on her next book, a global history of Palestine’s people.

Tatreez Workshops and Lectures by Tatreez and Tea - Ongoing
2023-02-01 - 2023-04-02 | Virtual
Your instructor is author and scholar Wafa Ghnaim, founder of Tatreez & Tea!
Tatreez & Tea’s mission is to preserve Palestinian embroidery and storytelling traditions in the diaspora. Tatreez & Tea is the first of it’s kind. When Wafa first founded Tatreez & Tea in 2016, she was the only educator solely focused on Palestinian embroidery, traveling the US and the world. Now, new local initiatives, culture bearers, “tatreez circles”, and mentors are emerging from communities around the world like never before. The tatreez revolution has gained a beautiful momentum and now is the time to join.
Wafa’s goal in her educational classes are three-fold: educate students from art history and oral history perspectives that preserve the meanings, stories and symbolism of traditional Palestinian embroidery motifs; teach versatile skills that allow students to eventually produce large independent projects; encourage students to become creative and grow beyond simply abiding by traditional embroidery principles.
Click here for upcoming events!
https://www.tatreezandtea.com

Philanthropist Teresa Chahine [afikra Conversations]
2023-02-07 01:00 - 03:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Teresa is the inaugural Sheila and Ron ’92 Marcelo Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management. She is the author of “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship,” a twelve step framework for building impactful ventures in new and existing organizations. Dr. Chahine’s research focuses on developing tools to characterize and advance social and environmental determinants of health. She launched the first social entrepreneurship program in the context of public health, at Harvard University. She was also responsible for launching the first venture philanthropy organization in her home country of Lebanon, providing tailored financing and critical management support to social enterprises serving marginalized populations through education and job creation for youth and women.

“When We Were Arabs – Memory, Erasure and Cultural Connections” Workshop
2023-02-16 15:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Diverse expressions of historical memory persist and gain meaning despite nationalist projects to minimize diversity in pursuit of an imaginary homogeneity that in truth exists practically nowhere in the world. The fact that such attempts at erasure are responsible not only for cultural amnesia, but for denial of common cultural experiences that would foster acceptance instead of rejection. This workshop will place two works of historical memory into conversation. Coincidentally, two authors representing two culturally related but geographically distant societies gave their books the same title: When We Were Arabs to invoke that claim of identity (Cuando Fuimos Arabe). They are Emilio González Ferrín, University of Seville, and journalist Massoud Hayoun based in Los Angeles. This conversation, moderated by educator Dr. Rabiah Khalil, will explore the persistence of memory and affirm the value of recognizing shared roots and accepting the richness of our diversity.
This program is sponsored by Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the Arab American National Museum and Montgomery College Office of Advancement and Community Engagement
This program is made possible by a Title VI grant from the United States Department of Education, which is funding a National Resource Center on the Middle East at Georgetown University, and by support from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
For more questions, e-mail Dave Serio at DSerio@accesscommunity.org

What's next for the right to boycott in America?
2023-03-02 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Thursday, March 2 at 1:00 pm Eastern.
This virtual gathering, co-sponsored by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Jewish Currents and Just Vision, will provide a unique opportunity to hear directly from Alan Leveritt, publisher of the Arkansas Times and protagonist in Boycott, together with his attorney, Brian Hauss, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). I will also be joined by Boycott protagonists Bahia Amawi, a speech therapist and plaintiff from Texas; Mikkel Jordahl, an attorney and plaintiff from Arizona; Dima Khalidi, a lawyer and the Executive Director of Palestine Legal; Lara Friedman, a researcher and the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; and our very own, Julia Bacha, Just Vision‘s Creative Director and Director of Boycott.
This is an opportunity to be in community as we mark the worldwide online release of Boycott on the heels of the Supreme Court’s announcement earlier this week. We’re counting on you to bring your curiosities and questions, and to be part of the next phase of our campaign to bring attention to anti-boycott laws and their implications.
Please register here by Wednesday, March 1, and feel free to extend this invitation to your family, friends and community. Our shared work to protect the right to dissent continues, and we hope you can join us in this important conversation.

PANEL | Shocks & Aftershocks of the Turkey-Syria Earthquake
2023-03-02 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | University of Washington – Thomson Hall, 1911 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
The Middle East Center invites you to an evening roundtable on:
STRATEGIC ‘HOLLOWING OUT’: BUREAUCRATIC INSTITUTIONS, CONSOLIDATION OF POWER, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF DISASTER – Asli Cansunar, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of Washington
ONE MAN MANY DISASTERS: WHAT IS NEXT FOR TURKEY? – Resat Kasaba, Professor & former Director, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington
WHY DID THE EARTHQUAKE HAPPEN AND WHY WAS IT SO DESTRUCTIVE: A GEOLOGIC PERSPECTIVE ON TURKEY’S MAJOR EARTHQUAKE ZONES – Scott L. Montgomery, Geoscientist and Lecturer, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Affiliate Faculty, Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington
LIFE AMIDST CUMULATIVE DISASTERS: REFUGEES AFTER EARTHQUAKE IN GAZIANTEP – Ayda Apa Pomeshikov, Ph.D. Candidate, Interdisciplinary Near and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Washington
MODERATED BY – Selim S. Kuru, Associate Professor, Director of Ottoman & Turkish Studies (TOS), Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures, University of Washington
Thomson Hall – Rm 101

International Women's Day Artist Talk with Mary Hazboun
2023-03-08 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
March 8 is International Women’s Day, so join Museum of the Palestinian People in celebrating Palestinian women artists! This artist talk will feature Mary Hazboun, the Palestinian artist behind “The Art of Weeping,” a collection of 50+ original drawings currently on show at Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, D.C.
About Mary:
Mary Hazboun is a multidisciplinary Chicago-based artist who practices “ The Art of Weeping” as an act of processing grief and somatic healing of bodies through drawing and singing. Mary’s work highlights the nuanced traumas of women and their resistance against different forms of oppression that is manifested in the military machine, patriarchal societies, and forced migrations. She uses art, ceremonies, and performance for emptying blocked emotions, opening internal space, and pouring in trauma-informed introspections as a form of healing. Mary was born and raised in the city of Bethlehem and moved to the U.S in 2004.
Tickets are by donation, and after reserving your spot you will receive a Zoom link to join the artist talk on March 8 at 12 p.m. Resilience Monthly Club members can use the code 1948 to attend this event for free.

Black SWANA Lit: Mizna Reading + DJ – An AWP Offsite Event [In-Person Only]
2023-03-09 19:30 - 21:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
Northwest Film Forum and Mizna present an AWP offsite reading to mark the release of Mizna’s Black Takeover Issue, guest-edited by acclaimed poet Safia Elhillo. This collection of Black writing from the SWANA region and diaspora is a first-of-its-kind, and we’re celebrating its launch with a killer line-up of writers including Safia Elhillo and a DJ set by fab creative Ladin Awad.
This program is supported by National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Minnesota Center for Humanities.

Photography: Issues of culture and identity with Maha Alasaker
2023-03-10 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Join Maha Alasaker a visual artist and a photographer, based in Kuwait.
She will discuss how through her artwork, she tries to gain a deeper understanding of herself while attempting to engage issues of culture and identity. Her curiosity centers around how a woman’s upbringing affects identity and self-worth.
Maha’s projects have been displayed in numerous exhibitions in New York City, London, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Marie Claire and Rolling Stone have featured her work.
In 2019 , Maha published her first photo book,“ Women of Kuwait”, which was then acquired by the Getty Research Institute and The Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
Hosted by: Dr Becky Alexis Martin, Lecturer in Human Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University and an award-winning photographer.

**Please double check the start time on this event if you plan on attending. Thanks!

AWP Offsite: Glossing the Margins—A Bi-lingual Arabic-English Poetry Reading
2023-03-10 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, 98122, United States
AWP Offsite: Glossing the Margins—A Bi-lingual Arabic-English Poetry Reading
Friday Mar 10 2023 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Join us for an evening of poetry in which the borders between languages fall away and only poetry remains. Featuring poets Deema Shehabi, Fady Joudah, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Lubna Safi, and Zeina Hashem Beck.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is the author of Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award. She is the translator and curator of the Poems from Palestine series at the Baffler magazine. She is the winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, for her book Something About Living (U of Akron Press, 2024). Her second book of poems, Kaan & Her Sisters is forthcoming from Trio House Press in July, 2023.
Fady Joudah has published five collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu; a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; and, most recently, Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Arab American Book Award, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is an Editor-at-Large for Milkweed Editions. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.
Deema K. Shehabi is the author of Thirteen Departures From the Moon and co-editor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, for which she received the Northern California Book Award’s NCBR Recognition Award. She is also co-author of Diaspo/Renga with Marilyn Hacker and the winner of the Nazim Hikmet poetry competition in 2018.
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet and the author of, most recently, O, named a Best Book of the Year by Literary Hub and The New York Public Library. She’s the co-creator and co-host of Maqsouda, a podcast about Arabic poetry produced by Sowt.
Lubna Safi is a poet, writer, and graduate student residing in California. Her poems and essays have been published in Guernica, The Journal, MIZNA, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, Your Blue and the Quiet Lament won the Walt McDonald First Book Prize in Poetry and is published by Texas Tech University Press

The Shape of Home Anthology Virtual Author Talk
2023-03-20 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Join us to chat with several authors published within The Shape of Home anthology and learn how they came up with their story ideas, what their writing process is, and more!

Email rocyouth@clpvd.org for the Zoom link
