In honor of Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who passed away earlier this year, I’d like to revisit Juha the famous trickster character. I was fortunate enough to study Arabic langugage and literature during the years when Jayyusi’s PROTA project was bringing many works to the attention of readers in English. One of these works is published as Tales of Juha: Classic Arab Folk Humor (Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2007). This is a great compilation and rendition of many classic Juha stories.
Guest Post by Houda Elfchtali | Meknes, Morocco Arabic version here | انظروا هنا للنسخة العربية
Houda Elfchtali
Long excluded from the world of music–history makes no mention of female Moroccan artists before the 1940s–Moroccan women had to fight to be able to express their talent. There were eventually some developments in this arena, with national music conservatories opening to women in the early 1940s in Fez, Tetouan, Marrakech, Rabat, Meknes and Casablanca.
In this post, I’m adding some new Arabic proverbs/sayings to the ones I posted years ago here. The post from 2016 is one of my most consistently popular posts, but it is high time we got some new ones! This round is more colloquial. The earlier post includes more quotations from literature. Enjoy!
Honey | Source
إن كان حبيبك عسل، ما تلحوش كلّه If your honey is sweet, don’t lick him/her all away
Houston | Photo by Vlad Busuioc
A few months ago, I picked up Black Water Rising (2009, 1st in the Jay Porter series by Attica Locke) and I was plunged into a world of daily struggle–the struggle to survive, to stay true to one’s principles, to take care of one’s family–often against the odds. I don’t find myself in the perspective of a Black man providing for his family very often, but this opportunity to view the world through someone else’s eyes for a time is a gift.
In this post, I’m delighted to introduce you to some embroidery textile arts happening today and some of the people who are currently at work in these fields in the SWANA/MENA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa/Middle East and North Africa). We’ll be looking at Palestinian, Egyptian, and Moroccan examples, in that order. This post is not comprehensive – feel free to contact me if I’ve failed to include a person or topic you’d like me to add!
In this post, I’m delighted to introduce you to a major textile art happening today: Khayamiyya (Appliqué) of Egypt. Next month we’ll follow up with embroidery arts. Let me know if there are other arts you’d like to see in future posts. For example, anyone here want to write or read about caftan fashions of Morocco? Another topic familiar to those who knit or crochet is “Tunisian crochet.” As far as I know, this technique and its name have nothing to do with Tunisia (source here), but tell me if you know better!
Normally, I publish exactly one post on this blog at the start of each month. I’m making an exception this month, prompted by personal reflections on a recent incident at Hamline University, after signing a petition in support of a faculty member who was dismissed from teaching after showing an image in class that disturbed a student. The petition is here.
Note: I do include the image in question after the next paragraph.
Bassiouney with Tutankhamun, wearing Fatimid-era dress Nov. 2022
From the first time we worked together (on the translation of her novel Ashiyaʾ raʾiʿa / Wonderful Things, published in English as Mortal Designs, AUC Press 2016), Reem Bassiouney and I have maintained a shared understanding of the role of literature in society; the role of creativity in an individual’s life; and the role of imagination in the mind of the readers and all those of us who are re-envisioning our lives and the world around us.
Atlas Studios. Source
Two Film Industries (Separate, Not Equal) It would seem that there are two very distinct film industries in Morocco: the films produced by Moroccans, and the films produced by foreigners. In fact, they are linked to one another by political economy. Consider the following scene. Moroccan filmmaker M. A. Tazi was trying to reconstruct a fourteenth-century urban environment in Salé for a film based on a Moroccan novel.
Scene from Tazi’s Looking for My Wife’s Husband (1995). Source
This mini-series consists of two posts. The first provides a historical introduction to the film industry in Morocco. How did it get started? What are the big issues that shaped, and continue to shape, this industry?
The Foreign Origins of Cinematography in Morocco Both domestic and foreign production are best understood in the context of Moroccan history. The history of film in Morocco, like that of modern technology in most of the world, begins with colonialism.
