Arab Studies Journal Spotlight:
Twentieth Anniversary Issue (Spring 2013)
Since its inception in 1992, the Arab Studies Journal has taken part in extraordinary changes in the field of Middle Eastern studies: paradigm shifts (and, on occasion, returns), the growth of once-nascent fields (like gender and sexuality studies), and the emergence of exciting new subfields.
This special issue of the Arab Studies Journal celebrates two decades of publishing by featuring articles and book reviews that reflect the Journal’s dedication to critical, comparative and multidisciplinary scholarship on a wide range of topics and geographic coverage. Scholarly contributions to this issue represent various academic disciplines, including history, anthropology, political science, sociology and comparative literature.
Scholars featured in this issue include Joel Beinin, who examines the urban element of Jewish communities in Palestine/Israel from the pre-aliyah period to 1967 in order to excavate histories of Arab-Jewish coexistence and violence; Khaled Furani, who explores the ways in which Palestinian poetry festivals in the mid-twentieth century provided the space and opportunity for communal celebration, further development of nationalist rhetoric and opposition to Israeli rule; Zainab Saleh, who examines the Saddam Hussein regime’s use of the 1924 Iraqi Nationality Law in the 1980s to expel “Iraqis of Iranian origin”; and Cortney Hughes Rinker, whose work on Morocco argues that the use of contraceptives by women in Rabat is less about neoliberal development discourses on becoming autonomous citizens, and more about surviving and managing national obligations and working-class realities.
In addition, this anniversary issue contains a unique section on “Arab Migrations and Diasporas,” featuring articles by Louise Cainkar, Simon Jackson and Wendy Pearlman, and a robust review section featuring a review of the second edition of Ella Shohat’s groundbreaking Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation. Also covered in the review section are new works by Noha Radwan, Abigail Jacobson, Eve M. Troutt Powell, Fida J. Adely, Samera Esmeir and Nancy Reynolds.
Content:
Articles
Mixing, Separation, and Violence in Urban Spaces and the Rural Frontier in Palestine
by Joel Beinin
On Iraqi Nationality: Law, Citizenship, and Exclusion
by Zainab Saleh
Dangerous Weddings: Palestinian Poetry Festivals During Israel’s First Military Rule
by Khaled Furani
Responsible Mothers, Anxious Women: Contraception and Neoliberalism in Morocco
by Cortney Hughes Rinker
Special Section: Arab Migrations and Diasporas
Global Arab World Migrations and Diasporas
by Louise Cainkar
Diaspora Politics and Developmental Empire: The Syro-Lebanese at the League of Nations
by Simon Jackson
Emigration and the Resilience of Politics in Lebanon
by Wendy Pearlman
Book Reviews
Juridical Humanity: A Colonial History
by Samera Esmeir
reviewed by Ilana Feldman
Picturing Algeria
by Pierre Bourdieu, edited by Franz Schultheis and Christine Frisinghelli
reviewed by Muriam Haleh Davis
A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran
by Trita Parsi
reviewed by Bitta Mostofi
A City Consumed: Urban Commerce, the Cairo Fire, and the Politics of Decolonization in Egypt
by Nancy Y. Reynolds
reviewed by Sarah El-Kazaz
Egyptian Colloquial Poetry in the Modern Arabic Canon: New Readings of Shi‘r al-‘Amiyya
by Noha M. Radwan
reviewed by Christopher Stone
Tell This in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire
by Eve M. Troutt Powell
reviewed by Soha El Achi
From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem between Ottoman and British Rule
by Abigail Jacobson
reviewed by Mustafa Aksakal
Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation, New Edition
by Ella Shohat
reviewed by Nick Denes
Gendered Paradoxes: Educating Jordanian Women in Nation, Faith, and Progress
by Fida J. Adely
reviewed by Bruce Burnside
Global Palestine
by John Collins
reviewed by Paul Thomas Chamberlin
The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza
by Eyal Weizman
reviewed by Lisa Hajjar
Review Essays
Situating Salafism: Between the Local, the National, and the Global
by Michael Farquhar
Street Life: Rebels, Rulers, and the Right to the City
by Deen Sharp