VIRTUAL READS @ UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Arab-American Faces and Voices by Elizabeth Boosahda As Arab Americans seek to claim their communal identity and rightful place in American society at a time of heightened tension between the United States and the Middle East, an understanding look back at more than one hundred years of the Arab-American community is especially timely. In this book, Elizabeth Boosahda, a third-generation Arab American, draws on over two hundred personal interviews, as well as photographs and historical documents that are contemporaneous with the first generation of Arab Americans (Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians), both Christians and Muslims, who immigrated to the Americas between 1880 and 1915, and their descendants. Boosahda focuses on the Arab-American community in Worcester, Massachusetts, a major northeastern center for Arab immigration, and Worcester's links to and similarities with Arab-American communities throughout North and South America. Using the voices of Arab immigrants and their families, she explores their entire experience, from emigration at the turn of the twentieth century to the present-day lives of their descendants. This rich documentation sheds light on many aspects of Arab-American life, including the Arab entrepreneurial motivation and success, family life, education, religious and community organizations, and the role of women in initiating immigration and the economic success they achieved.
ISBN: 9780292709201
Publication Date: 2003-06-01
Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics by Steven Salaita N.B. this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title. Stock of this book requires shipment from overseas. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. Using literary and social analysis, this book examines a range of modern Arab American literary fiction and illustrates how socio-political phenomena have affected the development of the Arab American novel.
ISBN: 9781403976208
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Arab American Women by Michael W. Suleiman (Editor) Arab American women have played an essential role in shaping their homes, their communities, and their country for centuries. Their contributions, often marginalized academically and culturally, are receiving long- overdue attention with the emerging interdisciplinary field of Arab American women's studies. The collected essays in this volume capture the history and significance of Arab American women, addressing issues of migration, transformation, and reformation as these women invented occupations, politics, philosophies, scholarship, literature, arts, and, ultimately, themselves. Arab American women brought culture and absorbed culture; they brought relationships and created relationships; they brought skills and talents and developed skills and talents. They resisted inequities, refused compliance, and challenged representation. They engaged in politics, civil society, the arts, education, the market, and business. And they told their own stories. These histories, these genealogies, these narrations that are so much a part of the American experiment are chronicled in this volume, providing an indispensable resource for scholars and activists.
ISBN: 9780815636847
Publication Date: 2021-12-01
Contemporary Arab-American Literature by Carol Fadda-Conrey The last couple of decades have witnessed a flourishing of Arab-American literature across multiple genres. Yet, increased interest in this literature is ironically paralleled by a prevalent bias against Arabs and Muslims that portrays their long presence in the US as a recent and unwelcome phenomenon. Spanning the 1990s to the present, Carol Fadda-Conrey takes in the sweep of literary and cultural texts by Arab-American writers in order to understand the ways in which their depictions of Arab homelands, whether actual or imagined, play a crucial role in shaping cultural articulations of US citizenship and belonging. By asserting themselves within a US framework while maintaining connections to their homelands, Arab-Americans contest the blanket representations of themselves as dictated by the US nation-state. Deploying a multidisciplinary framework at the intersection of Middle-Eastern studies, US ethnic studies, and diaspora studies, Fadda-Conrey argues for a transnational discourse that overturns the often rigid affiliations embedded in ethnic labels. Tracing the shifts in transnational perspectives, from the founders of Arab-American literature, like Gibran Kahlil Gibran and Ameen Rihani, to modern writers such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Joseph Geha, Randa Jarrar, and Suheir Hammad, Fadda-Conrey finds that contemporary Arab-American writers depict strong yet complex attachments to the US landscape. She explores how the idea of home is negotiated between immigrant parents and subsequent generations, alongside analyses of texts that work toward fostering more nuanced understandings of Arab and Muslim identities in the wake of post-9/11 anti-Arab sentiments.
ISBN: 9781479804313
Publication Date: 2014-05-30
Culture, Class, and Work among Arab-American Women by Jen'nan Ghazal Read Read examines the labor force activity of Arab-American women, a group whose work experiences provide an exception to accepted theories. The employment rates of Arab immigrant women rank among the lowest of any immigrant group, while the rates of native-born Arab-American women resemble those of U.S.-born white women. These differences cannot be explained by Arab-American womens human capital characteristics or family resources, but are due to traditional cultural norms that prioritize womens family obligations over their economic activity and to ethnic and religious social networks that encourage the maintenance of traditional gender roles. Reads findings challenge assumptions about variations in ethnic womens labor force participation. Arab cultural values play an important role in determining the position of women of Arab descent in American society.
ISBN: 9781593321208
Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Etching Our Own Image by Anan Ameri; Holly Arida; Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Mich.) Staff (Contribution by) Etching Our Own Image: Voices From Within the Arab American Art Movement is a celebration of Arab American art and identity. In the wake of 9/11, the need for Arab Americans to define themselves, rather than be defined by others has galvanized an artistic movement. This collection of writers includes poets, musicians, playwrights, creative writers, painters, conceptual artists, comedians and scholars of the arts who have gathered to assert for themselves what it means to be Arab American and an artist. Arab American artists use their art both to resist and to embrace their past, present and future. Through their art they retain their origins, while creating something new. They collaborate and come together. The artists included here are above all artists and the artistic renderings in this collection demonstrate their commitment to craft, innovation, and expression. They take on the task of etching their own image willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously. By telling their own stories through their own artistic mediums, these voices from within the Arab American art movement reclaim their own image and tell the world who they are.
ISBN: 9781847181954
Publication Date: 2007-06-01
Inclined to Speak by Hayan Charara (Editor) At no other time in American history has our imagination been so engrossed with the Arab experience. An indispensable and historic volume, Inclined to Speak gathers together poems, from the most important contemporary Arab American poets, that shape and alter our understanding of this experience. These poems also challenge us to reconsider what it means to be American. Impressive in its scope, this book provides readers with an astonishing array of poetic sensibilities, touching on every aspect of the human condition. Whether about culture, politics, loss, art, or language itself, the poems here engage these themes with originality, dignity, and an unyielding need not only to speak, but also to be heard. Here are thirty-nine poets offering up 160 poems. Included in the anthology are Naomi Shihab Nye, Samuel Hazo, D. H. Melhem, Lawrence Joseph, Khaled Mattawa, Mohja Khaf, Matthew Shenoda, Kazim Ali, Nuar Alsadir, Fady Joudah, and Lisa Suhair Majaj. Charara has written a lengthy introduction about the state of Arab American poetry in the country today and short biographies of the poets and provided an extensive list of further readings.
ISBN: 9781557288660
Publication Date: 2008-03-01
Modern Arab American Fiction by Steven Salaita Within the spectrum of American literary traditions, Arab American literature is relatively new. Writing produced by Americans of Arab origin is mainly a product of the twentieth century and only started to flourish in the past thirty years. While this young but thriving literature varies widely in content and style, it emerges from a common community and within a specific historical, political, and cultural context. In Modern Arab American Fiction, Salaita maps out the landscape of this genre as he details rather than defines the last century of Arab American fiction. Exploring the works of such best-selling authors as Rabih Alameddine, Mohja Kahf, Laila Halaby, Diana Abu-Jaber, Alicia Erian, and Randa Jarrar, Salaita highlights the development of each author's writing and how each has influenced Arab American fiction. He examines common themes including the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-90, the representation and practice of Islam in the United States, social issues such as gender and national identity in Arab cultures, and the various identities that come with being Arab American. Combining the accessibility of a primer with in-depth critical analysis, Modern Arab American Fiction is suitable for a broad audience, those unfamiliar with the subject area, as well as scholars of the literature.
ISBN: 9780815632535
Publication Date: 2011-04-30
Possible Histories by Charlotte Karem Albrecht A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visitwww.luminosoa.org to learn more. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who immigrated to the US beginning in the 1870s worked as peddlers. Men were able to transgress Syrian norms related to marriage practices while they were traveling, while Syrian women accessed more economic autonomy though their participation in peddling networks. In Possible Histories, Charlotte Karem Albrecht explores this peddling economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a site for revealing how dominant ideas about sexuality are imbricated in Arab American racial histories. Karem Albrecht marshals a queer affective approach to community and family history to show how Syrian immigrant peddlers and their interdependent networks of labor and care appeared in interconnected discourses of modernity, sexuality, gender, class, and race. Possible Histories conceptualizes this profession, and its place in narratives of Arab American history, as a "queer ecology" of laboring practices, intimacies, and knowledge production. This book ultimately proposes a new understanding of the long arm of Arab American history that puts sexuality and gender at the heart of ways of navigating US racial systems. 
ISBN: 9780520391727
Publication Date: 2023-02-07
The Rise of the Arab American Left by Pamela E. Pennock In this first history of Arab American activism in the 1960s, Pamela Pennock brings to the forefront one of the most overlooked minority groups in the history of American social movements. Focusing on the ideas and strategies of key Arab American organizations and examining the emerging alliances between Arab American and other anti-imperialist and antiracist movements, Pennock sheds new light on the role of Arab Americans in the social change of the era. She details how their attempts to mobilize communities in support of Middle Eastern political or humanitarian causes were often met with suspicion by many Americans, including heavy surveillance by the Nixon administration. Cognizant that they would be unable to influence policy by traditional electoral means, Arab Americans, through slow coalition building over the course of decades of activism, brought their central policy concerns and causes into the mainstream of activist consciousness. With the support of new archival and interview evidence, Pennock situates the civil rights struggle of Arab Americans within the story of other political and social change of the 1960s and 1970s. By doing so, she takes a crucial step forward in the study of American social movements of that era.
ISBN: 9781469630984
Publication Date: 2017-02-20
Women Rising by Rita Stephan (Editor); Mounira M. Charrad (Editor) Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women's resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women's political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women's activism.
ISBN: 9781479801046
Publication Date: 2020-06-09

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STREAMING VIDEOS

Now with Bill Moyers : Azizah al-Hibri on interfaith dialogue / Public Affairs Television

By applying her deep knowledge of the Quran and the U.S. Constitution to issues involving democracy and women's rights, Azizah al-Hibri has been instrumental in nurturing an urgently needed interfaith dialogue both at home and abroad. In this program, Bill Moyers and Dr. al-Hibri explore her role as a bridge builder between Muslims and non-Muslims as she advocates conflict resolution through mediation, not violence. She also addresses Arab animosity toward the U.S., America's tarnished image in the eyes of many Middle Eastern countries, and the hijacking of Islam for political ends, using the 9/11 attacks as a powerful case in point.

Once upon a time Beirut, story of a star / directed by Jocelyne Saab

Distraught over their city's recent destruction during the Lebanese Civil War, Yasmine and Leila embark on a journey in search of Beirut's past glory. They carry with them two rare, unreleased film prints which help them land a meeting with the reclusive and eccentric film connoisseur, Monsieur Farouk. Through the magic of cinema, the three travel back in time on a mythical, history-laden tour of the city. Here, Once Upon a Time: Beirut shines as the travelers visit the Beirut of the French-directed films of the 1930s. Next they explore the Beirut of the 1960s as seen through the sense of Arab filmmakers and finally they visit the Beirut of the large-scale American studio efforts of the 1970s.

Swank Digital Campus

A selection of feature films from well-known studios such as MGM, Miramax, United Artists, Columbia Pictures, and Dreamworks.

PODCASTS

True Talk

True Talk focuses on the Middle East and the Muslim world. The show also discusses issues that Muslims face world wide, as well as for American Muslims who are seeking to live as peace-loving Americans in a nation that often has only seen stereotypical portrayals of Islam.

Obnoxiously Pleasant

An Arab American podcast where we share our love of Arab culture, food, and everything in between.This is an apolitical podcast with a focus on having great conversations and a good laugh.

FannBoy Friday with Shahjehan Khan

A weekly podcast of bite-sized interviews, hosted by actor, musician, and producer Shahjehan Khan in partnership with the Fann database for Muslim creative projects.

10 Best Arab American Podcasts

Please Note: The podcasts listed are not resources held by the University Libraries. There is no guarantee that the resources will be available or accessible to all users. Nor does the University Libraries endorse any views expressed during the podcasts.