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I feel like my blogosphere has exploded, lately, with articles vaguely relevant to my dissertation. Maybe it's the nature of my blogosphere.
Is There Feminist Discourse Beyond The Veil? - Jezebel
I have to say, I'm a little sick of titles like this--maybe because I've been convinced the answer is yes since about my sophomore year of college. That may just be me. But Latoya Peterson puts together two interesting tidbits: Marnia Lazregs' Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women, which just went on my to-read pile in my head, and a new Egyptian movie, Scheherazade: Tell Me a Story, which I hope gets a US (preferably an NYC!) showing soon enough. There's a fascinating conversation in the comments, too: are muhajjabat judging me [a white non-Muslim] for not covering? (I would say, from my experience as an uncovered white woman working with covered Arab women, that the answer is no, with a confidence interval of 95%.)
On Strange Encounters with the Other Side - gazamom
Laila el-Haddad, a Palestinian living in the US, meets an Israeli, who is scared of her, at the play place. It's a fascinating little recounting. It's also an example I couldn't imagine happening in New York, at least not precisely this way, because New York's Arab Muslim and Jewish communities don't have much physical overlap. Borough Park (Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish) and Bensonhurst (Arab Muslim and other ethnicities/religions) run into each other, but there aren't many spaces that don't belong to a single community in one way or another. Well, perhaps it might happen in Park Slope. Everyone with kids bumps into each other in Park Slope eventually.
Man Accused of Threatening to Kill Muslim Women - NY Post
Bias incident in Smithtown, NY;, on Long Island. No deep analysis; just counting.
Hot Shots: Complex Magazine Ranks Hot Muslim Women - Muslimah Media Watch
Sara does a great job of taking apart how insane the list is. Can I just point out that the women get lighter-skinned as the countdown progresses, moving from black and darker-skinned South Asians to Arabs and lighter-skinned South Asians? It's also a little odd to see Queen Rania after all the shots of models. Certainly, she's hot, but...anyway.
The next three are all courtesy of my friend Shabana Mir, who blogs excellently on questions of Islam and gender at ReligionDispaches.org.
Christian evangelists target Dearborn's large Islamic population - Detroit Free Press.
The first Arab immigrants to the US were Christians, mostly Maronite and Orthodox Christians from what is now Lebanon. The Arab-American community is still majority-Christian, due to the demographic dominance of descendants of those migrants. But recent waves of immigration have been heavily Muslim, which means there are large Arab Muslim communities in Dearborn and elsewhere in Detroit, as well as in New York and other cities. What I find interesting about this is that the groups looking to convert Arab Muslims to Christianity include other Arabs, but not Arabs from the "traditional" Arabic churches: Maronites, Orthodox, Melkites. Instead, it is Arabs who belong to evangelical independent churches. Perhaps, whereas for members of "traditional" Arab churches, the idea of Church membership is about identity, and one doesn't usually change denominations, for these evangelical Christian Arabs, it becomes imperative to convert their co-ethnics. At the same time, these intra-Arab conflicts over religion are being fed by non-Arab Christians, some of whom have an Islamophobic and anti-Arab racist bent to their discourse. Fascinating case. I will say that, though I have met many Arab Christians in my research, including many who are not part of a traditional denomination, I've yet to see any evangelical work taking place in New York. It may be there, but it's not readily apparent to me.
30 Mosques in 30 Days
Two young men try to visit a different mosque in New York City every day during Ramadan. So far they've been to masajid (mosques) from many different ethnic groups, but only one Arab masjid. Masajid are generally ethnically homogenous, partially because it eases communication, partially because neighborhoods, at least in Brooklyn, tend to only have one Muslim ethnic community in one location. (Bay Ridge is Arab; my neighborhood, Kensington, is Bengali; Coney Island Ave is Pakistani; etc.) Anyway, the blog is fascinating; I hope they make it to Bay Ridge!
Amreeka - LA Times Review
I don't have anything smart to say here, except that I wonder if I can get babysitting so my wife and I can go see this soon. Because I really, really want to, and it's research, right? Totally necessary! *gets popcorn and field notebook*
Is There Feminist Discourse Beyond The Veil? - Jezebel
I have to say, I'm a little sick of titles like this--maybe because I've been convinced the answer is yes since about my sophomore year of college. That may just be me. But Latoya Peterson puts together two interesting tidbits: Marnia Lazregs' Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women, which just went on my to-read pile in my head, and a new Egyptian movie, Scheherazade: Tell Me a Story, which I hope gets a US (preferably an NYC!) showing soon enough. There's a fascinating conversation in the comments, too: are muhajjabat judging me [a white non-Muslim] for not covering? (I would say, from my experience as an uncovered white woman working with covered Arab women, that the answer is no, with a confidence interval of 95%.)
On Strange Encounters with the Other Side - gazamom
Laila el-Haddad, a Palestinian living in the US, meets an Israeli, who is scared of her, at the play place. It's a fascinating little recounting. It's also an example I couldn't imagine happening in New York, at least not precisely this way, because New York's Arab Muslim and Jewish communities don't have much physical overlap. Borough Park (Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish) and Bensonhurst (Arab Muslim and other ethnicities/religions) run into each other, but there aren't many spaces that don't belong to a single community in one way or another. Well, perhaps it might happen in Park Slope. Everyone with kids bumps into each other in Park Slope eventually.
Man Accused of Threatening to Kill Muslim Women - NY Post
Bias incident in Smithtown, NY;, on Long Island. No deep analysis; just counting.
Hot Shots: Complex Magazine Ranks Hot Muslim Women - Muslimah Media Watch
Sara does a great job of taking apart how insane the list is. Can I just point out that the women get lighter-skinned as the countdown progresses, moving from black and darker-skinned South Asians to Arabs and lighter-skinned South Asians? It's also a little odd to see Queen Rania after all the shots of models. Certainly, she's hot, but...anyway.
The next three are all courtesy of my friend Shabana Mir, who blogs excellently on questions of Islam and gender at ReligionDispaches.org.
Christian evangelists target Dearborn's large Islamic population - Detroit Free Press.
The first Arab immigrants to the US were Christians, mostly Maronite and Orthodox Christians from what is now Lebanon. The Arab-American community is still majority-Christian, due to the demographic dominance of descendants of those migrants. But recent waves of immigration have been heavily Muslim, which means there are large Arab Muslim communities in Dearborn and elsewhere in Detroit, as well as in New York and other cities. What I find interesting about this is that the groups looking to convert Arab Muslims to Christianity include other Arabs, but not Arabs from the "traditional" Arabic churches: Maronites, Orthodox, Melkites. Instead, it is Arabs who belong to evangelical independent churches. Perhaps, whereas for members of "traditional" Arab churches, the idea of Church membership is about identity, and one doesn't usually change denominations, for these evangelical Christian Arabs, it becomes imperative to convert their co-ethnics. At the same time, these intra-Arab conflicts over religion are being fed by non-Arab Christians, some of whom have an Islamophobic and anti-Arab racist bent to their discourse. Fascinating case. I will say that, though I have met many Arab Christians in my research, including many who are not part of a traditional denomination, I've yet to see any evangelical work taking place in New York. It may be there, but it's not readily apparent to me.
30 Mosques in 30 Days
Two young men try to visit a different mosque in New York City every day during Ramadan. So far they've been to masajid (mosques) from many different ethnic groups, but only one Arab masjid. Masajid are generally ethnically homogenous, partially because it eases communication, partially because neighborhoods, at least in Brooklyn, tend to only have one Muslim ethnic community in one location. (Bay Ridge is Arab; my neighborhood, Kensington, is Bengali; Coney Island Ave is Pakistani; etc.) Anyway, the blog is fascinating; I hope they make it to Bay Ridge!
Amreeka - LA Times Review
I don't have anything smart to say here, except that I wonder if I can get babysitting so my wife and I can go see this soon. Because I really, really want to, and it's research, right? Totally necessary! *gets popcorn and field notebook*
