Welcome to Salam!
This is a group for Lewis & Clark students to come together and educate ourselves about Middle Eastern culture, politics, history, literature, music, cinema and, of course, food.
Slingshot Hip Hop Film Screening
Salam: The Student Alliance For Learning About the Middle East will be showing the documentary "Slingshot Hip Hop." Following the film, director Jackie Salloum will be available to answer questions and speak about the her experience making the film. We will also be joined by female Palestinian hip hop artist Abeer "Sabreena Da Witch" Alzinaty who is featured as one of the artists in the film, to answer questions and give a performance.
Slingshot Hip Hop explores the stories of young Palestinian artists living in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel as they use hip hop and rap to cope with the tragedies of oppression and poverty. It chronicles their attempts to come together and share their art, exposing the obstacles of occupation and young people's attempts to transcend their situations and cross the borders that separate them. Slingshot Hip Hop was an official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and has been praised by critics for its insight into the growing Palestinian rap movement and the troubles faced by young Palestinians.
We will be showing the film at 7:00pm in the Council Chamber of Templeton Student Center at Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd. This event is free and open to the public.
Planning for the 2009 Middle East Peace & Education Conference
this WEDNESDAY, April 8
at 4:00 PM
in Albany 218
We will be discussing potential topics & speakers for the conference.
Also, we want to incorporate international students from the Middle East and other students who have traveled to the region into an event/panel. If someone you know falls into one of these categories, please invite him/her to come!
Salam watches Where Are You Going Moshe?
In the early 1960s, after Morocco’s independence from France, many of the country’s Jews clandestinely left for Israel. In Finemachiyamoshe (Where Are You Going Moshe?), the Jews of the little town of Bejjad plot their departure with the help of their rabbi. One thing, however, worries them: Will Berbeq’ha, the idiot who thinks he’s a general, leave too? Once he learns of the Jews’ plans, Mustapha, the bar-owner, panics; if all the non-Muslims leave, the Law will make him close the bar. How will he avoid such a disaster? He’ll have to hold back one Jew! That’s Hassan’s idea, anyway. He’s Mustapha’s son and lover of Rachel, Shlomo’s daughter. What will become of the Bejjad bar?
If you missed the movie, it is available for check-out in the Watzek Library.
Cyrus Partovi to speak about Israel/Palestine
DAY: Friday, March 13
TIME: 4:00pm
WHERE: JR Howard 101
Paul Powers to speak about Islam
DAY: Monday, 2/16
TIME: 3:00pm
WHERE: JR Howard 114
Prof. Powers has also asked us to take a little time beforehand to read something. Here is a note from him:
I chose as a reading two chapters from Timothy Marr's The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism. I am putting it on course reserve for my Sufism (Rels 355) class, so you can all access it there, under the title "Imagining Ishmael." [click here for excerpt-pdf] That is the introduction, a fairly accessible overview of the topic.
The next chapter is pretty long, but you can skim some of the specific examples he gives and still get the point pretty well. The overarching argument is that Americans have more or less always treated Muslims/the Middle East as a kind of antithesis of American ideals and values, defining ourselves against a Middle Eastern "Other"--we are democratic, they are despotic, we are egalitarian, they are hierarchical and repressive, we are kind to women, they are oppressive of them, etc. Marr's historical examples are eye-opening. I suspect the parallels with the present will strike most readers as surprisingly clear.
If you can, please read or skim this excerpt before Monday's meeting. It's a very interesting piece.
Up Next : Jordan!
Join us for our next meeting:
When: Monday, February 9, 4pm.
Where: Co-Op
Bring something cool to share with the rest of the group about Jordan--a newspaper article, poem, song, piece of art, food, anything. See you there!
Kite Runner Movie Watching
Where: Copeland Main Lounge
To continue our discussion of Afghanistan we will watch the movie The Kite Runner, based on the book by Khaled Hosseini. At our first meeting members expressed a preference to watch the movie in Miller 105 on Monday, February 2 at 8pm. The room is already reserved for that time, however. Instead we will watch it in the Copeland Main Lounge at the same time.
First Meeting: Monday, Jan. 27
We had a very productive first meeting of the semester.
We talked about some definitions of the Middle East and the modern history of Afghanistan. The handouts on these two topics are available under Resources. I also posted the article I mentioned at the meeting that discusses the U.S. exploitation of differences between Sunni and Shia during the Cold War.
We talked about some definitions of the Middle East and the modern history of Afghanistan. The handouts on these two topics are available under Resources. I also posted the article I mentioned at the meeting that discusses the U.S. exploitation of differences between Sunni and Shia during the Cold War.