Books

Timbuktu Manuscripts Online promise to re-balance the African Continent’s place in World intellectual History

By Charles C. Stewart, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | – The ancient Timbuktu manuscripts of Mali were back in the headlines following internet giant Google’s initiative to host a collection of them at an online gallery. The images of the documents, text in Arabic, can be found at a page called Mali Magic. No […]

Books

Review: ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’ by Novelist Amitav Ghosh traces Climate Crisis Origins to European Colonialism

The Third Pole

By Joydeep Gupta | – ( The Third Pole) – In his latest book, Amitav Ghosh identifies the beginning of the climate crisis as the point where total exploitation – of both lands and people – became the prevailing mode of growth in the world economy I did not ‘like’ The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav […]

art and photography

The Nativity, Jesus and Mary in Paintings of the Muslim Mughal Court of India

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here’s a Christmas entry. The Mughal dynasty, originating in what is now Uzbekistan, ruled India from 1526 until the 18th century, though the dynasty continued under British rule until 1857. Some of the members of the royal family were remarkably open-minded about religion, being a Muslim minority in a sea […]

African-Americans

bell hooks will never Leave Us – She lives on through the Truth of her Words

The Conversation

By Karsonya Wise Whitehead | – I was introduced to the work of bell hooks for the first time when I was 14 years old, sitting on my Nana’s porch, complaining about the mosquitoes and the heat. My Nana, who was probably frustrated by my endless complaints about being bored, stuck a copy of “Ain’t […]

Books

You heard that Right – “Peace Movements in Islam” – Juan’s new Book Challenges Stereotypes

Juan Cole

Today is a special day for me. In 2015, at the height of the ISIL cult’s influence in Iraq and Syria and during a time of extreme bigotry toward Muslims in the United States, I conceived a project on “Islamic Peace Studies.” The point was not to deny the violence of cult-like movements such as […]

Africa

Dune – a prophetic tale about the environmental destruction wrought by the colonisation of Africa

The Conversation

By Oli Mould | – Director Denis Villeneuve’s most recent sci-fi epic is the latest attempt to tell the story of Frank Herbert’s acclaimed 1965 novel, Dune. The film is set millennia in the future when the galaxy is ruled by a class of family Houses. Each house battles for control over the most valuable […]

Books

At its heart, Dune is a Tragedy, and a Warning against Trumpism

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The protagonist of the new Denis Villeneuve film, Dune, Paul Atreides, is a complex character, but he should be seen as an antihero, as the protagonist of a Greek tragedy with a fatal tragic flaw. The author of the 1965 novel on which the film is based, Frank Herbert, was […]

Books

Citizen Pilgrim: Richard Falk’s Breakthrough against Israeli Apartheid toward Palestinians

Foreign Policy in Focus

A review of Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim, by Richard Falk. By Walden Bello | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Richard Falk is universally regarded as one of the top minds when it comes to international law. Yet his views are not only unwelcome in establishment circles, but even among many […]

Africa

Abdulrazak Gurnah: what you need to know about the Nobel Prize winner for Literature

The Conversation

By Melanie Otto | – Abdulrazak Gurnah has been awarded the 2021 Nobel prize for literature. The Tanzanian novelist, who is based in the UK, was awarded the prize for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. Migration and […]