Recent Publications

Biography

My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century, by Adina Hoffman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. $27.50.

In this biography of Palestinian writer Taha Muhammad Ali, Hoffman offers an account of the life of an extraordinary poet who turned punishing material and political conditions into exquisite art. Hoffman contextualizes the life of Taha Muhammad Ali — who witnessed his childhood village destroyed in the 1948 war, fled to Lebanon, and saw his family divided as borders sealed shut — within the lives of his predecessors, peers, and friends, drawing out a literary world that is largely unknown to English-language readers. (EB)

Hasan al-Banna, by Gudrun Krämer. London: One-world Publications, 2010. $40.

In this revealing biography, Gudrun Krämer profiles the famous Muslim reformer, founder, and leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the movement to which he devoted his life. Krämer argues, through an exploration of al-Banna's thought and political projects, that his ideas cannot be removed from the context of his time. This book serves as a sincere attempt to research al-Banna's rarely discussed life and his project of establishing a moral order based on what he conceived of as "true Islam," one based on the Qur'an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad. (WT)

Cinema

Film in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. by Josef Gugler. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011.

Western films continue to dominate the international media landscape, and films from the Middle East — with the possible exception of those from Israel and Iran — have been met with little public interest and even scanter scholarly attention. In this collection of nine essays, scholars from a range of academic fields, as well as two film directors and a novelist, explore the Middle East's major national cinemas, giving particularly close attention to film directors who have given image to dissent — be it dissent from autocratic political regimes, patriarchy, fundamentalist movements, or the West. The essays discuss 18 films selected both for their excellence and relevance to contemporary issues, and also provide an overview of regional filmmaking. (EB)

Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion, ed. by Miri Talmon and Yaron Peleg. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011. $55.

"Motion fiction is," the editors begin, "a cultural medium for the articulation of collective identities." This maxim encapsulates the idea behind this collection of essays, which views Israeli cinema as a prism that refracts collective Israeli identities through the medium and art of motion pictures. The book features articles on issues such as intercultural and interethnic encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, the influence of the Holocaust and its ramifications in Israeli society, the collective memory of war, and Israel's subcultures refracted through the medium of motion pictures. The authors write about the cinematic tradition of a national community which consciously imagined itself at the same time cinema was evolving and consolidating as a medium and art. (WT)

Conversations with Mohsen Makhmalbaf, by Hamid Dabashi. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2010. $27.50.

Over three extensive conversations, Dabashi explores the origins and intricacies of Makhmalbaf's extraordinary career as a filmmaker. Harrowing personal accounts of his imprisonment are presented alongside ruminations on Iranian society, the artistry of cinema, and the global struggle of ordinary people against the violence and oppression of governments. Makhmalbaf's journey from Islamic radical to internationally renowned auteur is revealed as an ongoing search for human expression in the face of insurmountable challenges and injustices. An informed and provocative interlocutor, Dabashi proves an able guide through the intellectual maze of his subjects' work. (SL)

Culture and Society

Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology, ed. by Esther Hertzog, Orit Abuhav, Harvey E. Goldberg, and Emanuel Marx. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010. $45.

Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology is organized into five parts that reflect issues important in understanding Israeli society and to which the authors, in their ethnographic work, have made important contributions. An introduction traces the inception and development of Israeli anthropology, which started with the unconventional application of anthropological theories and methods to the...