Duke University Press Log

Enhanced Version of Iraq | Perspectives Available for iPad

We're very excited to announce that our first enhanced e-book is now available through Apple's iBookstore for the iPad. Photojournalist Benjamin Lowy's Iraq | Perspectives was a natural fit for the medium. The full-color photographs of Iraq during the war look beautiful on the iPad; with the black background of the iPad itself blending with the photos' black frames, viewers will feel as if they are in the humvee with Lowy. We have added audio to eight of the photos. Lowy tells readers where he was when he took the pictures and why he found the shot compelling. And best of all, though the printed book is $39.95, you can buy the iPad version for only $9.99. We hope you'll check it out.

Ousted Prime Minister on Greek economy

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou resigns today as the economic crisis in Greece continues to agitate European and global markets. Last year in the Mediterranean Quarterly, Papandreou assessed strategies for recovery in the eurozone, including government bailouts like the assistance that his successor is now tasked with securing from the European Union:
“It is essential to remember that it was not the public sector but the private financial sector — enabled by neoliberal governments —that caused the subprime bubble and speculative boom. And it was the bailouts and stimulus packages provided by governments that prevented the financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression. So it is only fair that the financial sector should bear some of the costs of the crisis, which was largely of its own making.” 
¾ George Papandreou in “A New Global Financial Architecture: Lessons from the Greek Crisis”

 Read the article for free here.

Mediterranean Quarterly on Libya

News outlets are reporting the as-yet unconfirmed death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi near his hometown of Sirte this morning. This could signal the end of Qaddafi’s forces in power, and victory for the Libyan uprising that has been ongoing since February 2011. 

For some background on the uprising, an article in the most recent issue of Mediterranean Quarterly, “Libya: Dream versus Reality,” gives a very accessible historical overview of the situation in Libya and what is at stake in the current struggle. The article explains that Libya emerged under United Nations auspices as a stillborn, failed state dependent on Western subventions, and that the civil war in which it is now embroiled was inevitable.

Read the article for free here.

Remembering Dicle Koğacioğlu

"The Other Effect,” the most recent issue of differences, is a tribute to the late scholar, Dicle Koğacioğlu, and her work.  The issue includes articles by Timothy Bewes, Lila Abu-Lughod, Ayse Parla, Leti Volpp, Z. Umut Turem, Elizabeth Polvinelli, and Koğacioğlu herself, with important new article on honor crimes, focused upon what she called the making of “the custom.”

Leti Volpp, Professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, reflects on Koğacioğlu’s life and work:

The legal sociologist Dicle Koğacioğlu was a brilliant scholar and feminist activist whose work on power, modernity, and bureaucratic forms of authority influenced many during her brief life.   Her work was deeply original, passionate, and critical, and spoke simultaneously to particular questions within Turkey and to broad theoretical debates.  A primary thread of Koğacioğlu’s writing, examined in complex contexts ranging from honor crimes, constitutional courts, to access to justice, was how public discourse on tradition always creates an “other.”  Her much cited article, “The Tradition Effect: Framing Honor Crimes in Turkey,” differences (2004), responded to a perceived increase in documentation of honor killings in Turkey by international organizations and nongovernmental organizations to show how these crimes are produced in relation to institutional practices and discourses of modern government.  Koğacioğlu argued that these institutions -- the Turkish state, Islamic parties, European Union, and the international media -- imagined as modern and standing outside of or in opposition to tradition, see tradition as an object of technical intervention, delimiting the universe of meaning through which these crimes can be understood, and removing attention from the way in which these very institutions participate in perpetuating these crimes.  Her article “Progress, Unity, and Democracy: Dissolving Political Parties in Turkey” in Law and Society (2004) examined the dissolution of Islamic and pro-Kurdish political parties by the Turkish Constitutional Court, assigned the task of dissolving anti-constitutional political parties.  Here Koğacioğlu showed that an arbitrary boundary between political and cultural domains was drawn by the Court, a boundary then used by the Court in the service of justifying its decision, as what may be harmless when an issue is cultural (use of the headscarf, the Kurdish language) may turn into a political symbol threatening the basis of the united, democratic, and progressive nation-state.   Koğacioğlu also published several works about access to justice in Turkey, looking in particular at interactions between citizens and legal authorities in the courthouse, the axes of power (class, gender) that operate in the legal system, as well as the negotiations by the disempowered who strategize within it.  At the time of her death, she was conducting research on Turkey’s justice system which promised to redefine the parameters of law and society scholarship in Turkey.   Her death is a stunning loss to feminist theory, to sociolegal scholarship, and to her many friends.

Israel Appoints First Openly Gay Judge

The Advocate featured an article on Monday announcing that Israel has appointed its first openly gay judge to Tel Aviv’s Labour Court.  Dori Spivak, a lawyer and the former chairman of Israel’s Association for Civil Rights, (ACRI), has been active in many gay-rights cases over the past 15 years. Many people hope that this appointment will be a sign of social change in Israel, particularly within the justice system.

A recent issue of GLQ, “Queer Politics and the Question of Palestine/Israel,” is an intervention in the debates about queer politics in this region of the Middle East.  The issue seeks to situate questions regarding LGBTQ rights, homophobia, and sexual policing in direct relation to questions concerning the colonial politics that currently define the relationship between Israel and its occupied Palestinian population.

Read the introduction for free here.

Guest Post: Abdeslam Maghraoui on the Roots of the Egyptian Protests

Today's post is by Abdeslam Maghraoui, Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University, and author of Liberalism without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922–1936.

The mass protests across Egypt this week seem to be coalescing into an unwavering movement intent on toppling Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime.  The magnitude, momentum, and direction of the protests are similar to the movement that forced president Ben Ali to flee Tunisia in January.  Despite significant social and cultural differences, the movements in both countries are fueled by apprehension about endemic social problems and decades of oppressive, authoritarian rule.  Mubarak’s external support and domestic pockets of resistance may delay and influence change, but a revolutionary outcome seems to be already in the making.

    For one, Egypt’s social problems are in many ways worse than Tunisia’s.  Regardless of the scope and speed of unfolding events, Mubarak’s regime is unlikely to survive the challenge.  Thirty million out of Egypt’s 81 million inhabitants live on less than two dollars a day.  Seventy-five percent of the population is under the age of 30 and many are jobless college graduates.  Increasing inflation, high food prices, and stagnant salaries during the last decade have battered middle class families.  Millions of poor and middle class Egyptians juggle two or three different jobs to make ends meet.  According to recent World Bank figures, one-fifth of Egyptians live bellow the poverty line.  In the meantime, the country’s top political and economic elites, associated with the inner circles of power, lead luxurious life styles.  Cairo’s chic, Beverly Hills’ like neighborhoods stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the country. 

Authors on the Air

Need some smart conversation? We've got some author interviews for you. First check out Amitava Kumar, author of A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb and Nobody Does the Right Thing, discussing Islamophobia on The Nation's podcast and the politics of terror on Al-Jazeera's Riz Khan Show. Then, for something completely different, listen to jazz pianist Randy Weston on NPR's Talk of the Nation. He talks about his new autobiography, African Rhythms, and about the fiftieth anniversary of his landmark album Uhuru Afrika. He'll be celebrating the anniversary with a concert at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center on November 13. Hope you enjoy hearing from these fascinating authors.

Syrian Arts Scene Remains Complicated

This weekend the New York Times reported on the arts scene in Syria. Syrians are experiencing greater economic freedoms and are exposed to a "worldly" global culture. But as the Internet permeates Syria, the regime has cracked down on expression. Michael Kimmelman reports that "Every book, art catalog, film script and television program, big or small, still runs a gantlet of government censors." Miriam cooke, author of Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official, finds today's censorship very similar to that of the last decade, even if the means are different. The Hafiz Asad regime sometimes facilitated the expression of anti-government sentiment by appropriating the work of artists and writers, turning works of protest into official agitprop. Syrian dissidents were forced to negotiate between the desire to genuinely criticize the authoritarian regime, the risk to their own safety and security that such criticism would invite, and the fear that their work would be co-opted as government propaganda. Now, cooke says, "the apparent openness is in fact just another way to create uncertainty about the outcome of daring writing or painting." Cooke has recently been focusing on prison writing and the remarkable change in descriptions of cell life. "Whereas under Hafiz the writing was dark and ambiguous now it is explicit, as though it is becoming possible to think what used to be unthinkable. But the outcome is the same: arbitrary censorship."

Surfer Girls in the New World Order

The Atlantic offers a short, interesting piece in their new issue on Gaza's surfer girls. The girls surf fully-clothed and will have to quit when they turn seventeen. One asks reporter Sarah A. Topol, "When you surf in America, do people stare at you?" This piece is just a vignette, and if it leaves you wanting to learn more about girls' and women's surfing around the world, you should check out Krista Comer's new book Surfer Girls in the New World Order. In the book Comer offers stories from Mexico, Indonesia, and Australia, as well the U.S. as she explores surfing as a local and global subculture, looking at how the culture of surfing has affected and been affected by girls, from baby boomers to members of Generation Y. To win a leftover advance review copy of the book, leave a comment here, or over at our Facebook page.

Author Events Tomorrow

Two great author events happening here at Duke tomorrow. At noon, sit down at your computer for a live online chat with Negar Mottahedeh, author of Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema. She'll be talking about political events in Iran, cinema, and about how she uses Twitter to teach and disseminate her work (she tweets @negaratduke). To ask a question of Mottahedeh in advance or during the session, send an email to live@duke.edu, post a comment on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook or tweet with the tag #dukelive.

Later in the afternoon, head over to Perkins Library for a roundtable on the work of Ariel Dorfman. Five scholars who have studied the work Duke's famed playwight/poet/novelist/essayist/activist Ariel Dorfman will discuss the many aspects of his work, from literature to human rights. One of them is Sophia McClennen, who has just published the first book-length study of Dorfman, Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope. We are also pleased to be bringing The Empire's Old Clothes, one of Dorfman's classic works of cultural criticism, back into print. A book signing will follow the roundtable.