Syria: A Living History (exhibition catalogue, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto)

Syria: A Living History 

Oct 15 2016 to Feb 26 2017

Few countries have captured the world’s attention like Syria has today. Stories of conflict and displacement dominate the media and define people’s awareness of the place. Syria: A Living History brings together artifacts and artworks that tell a different story — one of cultural diversity, historical continuity, resourcefulness, and resilience. For over five millennia, this region perched on the eastern Mediterranean has witnessed great world civilizations commingling on its soil and producing art, literature, and culture that constitute the country’s rich legacy. Strongly informed by a distinctive landscape and history, artists of Syria throughout the ages have made priceless contributions to world heritage. Syria: A Living History inspires new understanding of Syria’s past and present, and invites new ways of thinking about its future.

Co-Curators

Dr. Filiz Çakır Phillip, Aga Khan Museum

Professor Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT

Historian

Dr. Ross Burns, Sydney, Australia

https://www.agakhanmuseum.org/exhibitions/syria-living-history 

Open Access Report: Afghanistan in 2016: A Survey of the Afghan People

Afghanistan in 2016: A Survey of the Afghan People

Publisher: The Asia Foundation, 2016
275 pages

"The national mood in Afghanistan is at a record low, and Afghans are pessimistic because of insecurity, corruption, and rising unemployment and slow job growth. At the same time, more Afghans, particularly rural Afghan men, now support women’s right to vote and women’s right to work outside the home than ever before. The 2016 Survey of the Afghan People polled 12,658 Afghan respondents from 16 ethnic groups across all 34 provinces, including insecure and physically challenging environments. The annual survey is the longest-running and broadest nationwide survey of Afghan attitudes and opinions. Since 2004, the Survey has gathered the opinions of more than 87,000 Afghan men and women, providing a unique longitudinal portrait of evolving public perceptions of security, the economy, governance and government services, elections, media, women’s issues, and migration."

Open Access Resources from ISAM - Center for Islamic Studies [Turkey]

ISAM - Center for Islamic Studies makes available some very useful databases on their library's website: http://www.isam.org.tr/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.detail_content&cid=907&cat_id=5

Of particular importance are:

1. Salnames: http://isamveri.org/?url=salname

2. Ottoman articles: http://ktp.isam.org.tr/?url=makaleosm/findrecords.php

3. Ottoman treatises: http://ktp.isam.org.tr/?url=risaleosm

[Credit : Guy Burak]

Open Access Manuscript Collection: Sakıp Sabancı Museum's Arts of Book and Calligraphy Collection

"Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum's Arts of Book and Calligraphy Collection includes copies of the Koran, prayer books, calligraphic compositions in the kıt'a form, calligraphic albums, calligraphic panels, hilyes, imperial firmans and berats bearing the royal tuğra (imperial cipher) by renowned calligraphers dating from the late 14th to 20th centuries, and calligraphy tools and equipment."

See also: Alphabetical List of Open Access Islamic Manuscripts Collections

The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Napoléon to ISIS

The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Napoléon to ISIS

Organized by
Pamela Karimi
Nasser Rabbat

This dossier of original essays examines the demolition of monuments in the Middle East from the Napoléonic era to the present. The authors describe the impact of obliterating architecture on our psyches, cultures, philosophies, and historiographies. Tracing the mediatization of demolition, and its traps and tropes, such as sensationalism and anthropmorphization, these essays also explore the agencies and capacities of threatened monuments.

The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: Project Description • Pamela Karimi and Nasser Rabbat

Introduction

The Demise and Afterlife of Artifacts • Pamela Karimi and Nasser Rabbat

Part I: On Erasure and Its Aftermath

Exhibition and Erasure/Art and Politics • Annabel Wharton
Memento Mauri: The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba • Michele Lamprakos
DNA Damage: Violence Against Buildings • Sussan Babaie
Iconoclasm beyond Negation: Globalization and Image Production in Mosul • Thomas Stubblefield

Part II: On Civility, Barbarity and Acts of Violence Against Inanimate Objects

Artfare: Aesthetic Profiling from Napoléon to Neoliberalism • Kirsten Scheid
The Thing We Love(d): Little Girls, Inanimate Objects, and the Violence of a System • Talinn Grigor
Modernity as Perpetual War or Perpetual Peace? • Esra Akcan

Appendix: A Selection of News Articles on the Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East

This dossier of original essays examines the demolition of monuments in the Middle East from the Napoléonic era to the present. The authors describe the impact of obliterating architecture on our psyches, cultures, philosophies, and historiographies. Tracing the mediatization of demolition, and its traps and tropes, such as sensationalism and anthropmorphization, these essays also explore the agencies and capacities of threatened monuments.

Open Access Newspaper Archive: كوكب اميركا = Kawkab Amirka = Kawkab America = Star of America [1892 - 1896]

 كوكب اميركا = Kawkab Amirka = Kawkab America = Star of America  :jarīdah siyāsīyah ʻilmīyah tijārīyah adabīyah 
Niyūyūrk : Abrahīm wa-Najīb Yūsuf ʻArbīlī, 1892-

April 15, 1892  - February 28, 1896



See also :Alphabetical List of Open Access Historical Newspapers and Other Periodicals in Middle East & Islamic Studies

Open Access Newspaper Archive: The Syrian World (sample issues)

The Syrian world :  a monthly magazine in English dealing with Syrian affairs and Arabic literature.
Published : New York : Syrian-American Pr., 1926-1935.



Sample issues:
The Syrian World Vol. VI No. 7
The Syrian World Vol. VII No. 2
The Syrian World Vol. VIII No. 5
The Syrian World Tables of Contents for Volume Six

"Sample issues of The Syrian World are available, along with full indexes and tables of contents for The Syrian World between 1926 and 1932. To access the complete, fully-searchable archive of The Syrian World, please contact the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies"

See also :Alphabetical List of Open Access Historical Newspapers and Other Periodicals in Middle East & Islamic Studies

Open Access Report: Arab Human Development Report 2016

Arab Human Development Report 2016​
Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality

Published: New York : United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2016.

Open Access Book: Major voices in contemporary Persian literature

• Major voices in contemporary Persian literature (1980) ONLINE. 
Now available at www.utexas.Academia.edu/MichaelHillmann:

"Major Voices in Contemporary Persian Literature–Literature East & West 20 (1980), 351p, which consists of twenty-seven sections mostly presenting translations of poetry and prose and plot summaries of novels.

In five online units, including:
in Major Voices.1-99.pdf, “Persian Is Sugar” by Mohammad ‘Ali Jamâlzâdeh and Jamâlzâdeh’s “Introductory Note”;

in Major Voices.99-166.pdf, “The Umbrella” and “The Beggar” by Gholâmhosayn Sâ’edi and Sâ’edi’s “Introductory Note,” and Ali Mohammad Afghani’s Ahu Khanom’s Husband (1961)–A Plot Summary;

in Major Voices.167-244.pdf, “Preface” to An Investigation of Educational Problems on Iran by Samad Behrangi;

in MajorVoices.244-303.pdf, Jalâl Âl-e Ahmad’s The Cursing of the Land–A Plot Summary, and Prince Ehtejâb by Hushang Golshiri with Golshiri’s “Introductory Note”; and

in Major Voices.304-351.pdf, Rezâ Barâheni: A Case Study of Politics and the Writer in Iran, 1953-1977; and the volume’s concluding bibliography."

See also: Michael Hillman's Books on Academia.com
  [First posted in AMIR June 17, 2013,  updated 7 December 2016]