Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons^™

Embodying God's Final Word: Understanding The Dynamics Of Prophecy In The The Ancient Near East And Early Monotheistic Tradition, Naila Z. Razzaq

University Scholar Projects

This thesis studies the various forms of oral and literary prophecy in the Ancient the Ancient Near East and Second Temple Judaism. After an introductory background section on the dynamics of prophecy in Ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia, I problematize the nineteenth century concept of the “cessation of prophecy” after Malachi, the last prophet in the Tanakh.

Too often prophecy is seen as a punctiliar process with a determined beginning and end. I complicate this simplified view by discussing the following questions while analyzing several key primary sources from the Second Temple period: In what forms does prophecy continue even after …

The Creation Of Fear Through Censorship: Repression Of Artistic Freedom In The Music Of The Syrian Revolution, Rebecca Aliah Ajamoughli

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

"God, Syria, freedom, and that is all." These four words embody the goals of the Syrian Revolution. Yet, there is one key element of this chant that raises questions surrounding its meaning: freedom. For decades, the people of Syria have been subjected to restricted freedom by the Assad regime-especialIy musicalIy. The regime has artfulIy used music to legitimize its claim to the country. This utilization varies from early-learned pro-Baath chants to the monitoring of all performances held in the country. As Lisa Wedeen says in her work Ambiguities of Domination, "[this control of culture] isolates Syrians from one another, and …

Lost In Translation? Found In Translation? Neither? Both?, Esther Allen, Mary Ann Caws, Peter Constantine, Edith Grossman, Nancy Kline, Burton Pike, Damion Searls, Karen Van Dyck, Alyson Waters, Roger Celestin, Charles Lebel

The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal

Translation specialists Esther Allen, Mary Ann Caws, Peter Constantine, Edith Grossman, Nancy Kline, Burton Pike, Damion Searls, Karen Van Dyck and Alyson Waters respond to the TQC question:

“Lost in translation”; “Found in translation”: Are these just useless commonplaces or are they indicative of something relevant to your own practice?

The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm

Journal of Religion & Film

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, has come to define the genre of the biblical epic. It has earned a permanent place in American culture due to its annual airing on television during the Easter and Passover holidays. Most viewers are unaware, however, that DeMille had sought to make a film that would appeal to Jews, Christians and Muslims at a time when their common Abrahamic ancestry had yet to be articulated, and interreligious dialogue was all but unheard of. To this end, Henry Noerdlinger, DeMille’s researcher for the film, consulted the Qur’an, and screenwriters incorporated Islamic …

Undoing The Claim Of Objectivity: Contradictions At The Heart Of Bergtji Van Der Haak, Saudi Solutions (2005), Anisa Saeed Mohammed Nasser

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper is a study of Bergtji van der Haak, Saudi Solutions (2005). It attempts to question Bergtji van der Haak’s claim of “objective” depiction of Saudi women’s “reality,” as well as the claim of portraying Saudi women through their perspectives as stated in the opening scene. The premise is that the editing strives to undercut the very views of the women that the film is claiming to present, and in the process it duplicates some of the very mechanisms of oppression that the film is denouncing. The documentary’s attempt at ‘subalternizing’ and diminishing Saudi women discloses the subjectivity of …

Iranian Women, Iranian Cinema: Negotiating With Ideology And Tradition, Najmeh Moradiyan Rizi

Journal of Religion & Film

Throughout the ruptures of Iran’s history, Iranian women have been at the core of any social and political changes and challenges. In this historical context, Iranian women’s body, sexuality, and individuality have been confined within the constitution of religion and tradition. In recent years, however, the new generation of Iranian women is negotiating the notions of femininity, sexuality, and modernity in Iran’s society. Along with this negotiation, Iranian cinema, as the visual showcase of Iranian culture and society, has recently represented an unprecedented portrayal of Iranian women on the screen. This portrayal stems from the gender consciousness of Iranian women …

A Classroom Approach To Embedded Librarianship: Arab Spring And The Embedded Librarian.Pdf

Grasselli Library

No abstract provided.

Africa, Asia, And The History Of Philosophy: Racism In The Formation Of The Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830 By Peter K.J. Park (Review), Joseph D. O'Neil

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Poetry And The Arab Spring, George A. Simon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Abstract: In 2010-11 the world saw the rise of the Arab Spring, a series of uprisings across the Arab world. These uprisings were attempts by the Arab peoples to over throw their governments and bring freedom and change to their societies in order to live in dignity and grace. These populist uprisings produced powerful poetry focusing on the corruption of Arab governments and the rampant economic and social problems faced by the youth of the Arab world. In the following work I have chosen a number of Arabic poems which I translated and analyzed in order to see the relation …

Ni Francaise, Ni Juive, Ni Arabe: The Influence Of Nineteenth Century French Judaism On The Emergence Of Franco- Jewish- Arab Literature, Deborah Rosalind Gruber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study proposes that the influence of nineteenth century French Judaism on the Jewish communities of the Middle East from approximately 1910­‐1956 has had an indelible influence on the evolution of Franco- Jewish‐Arab literature today. From the late nineteenth century, the education of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire was provided by the Paris based Alliance Israélite Universelle, an organization established by French Jews with the purpose of emancipating disadvantaged Jewish communities outside of France. The result was the establishment of Franco­‐Jewish-Arab communities that regarded French education as a means of both social and economic advancement. Although the curriculum of …

The Final Pagan Generation By Edward J. Watts (Review), James A. Francis

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

“1636 And 1726: Yemen After The First Ottoman Era.” In Asia Inside Out: Changing Times, Vol. 1. Ed. E. Tagliacozzo, H. Siu, And P. Purdue, 112-34. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2015., Nancy Um

Art History Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

[Review Of The Book New Voices In Arab Cinema], Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Exception To The Rule? Lone French Nouns In Tunisian Arabic, Shana Poplack, Lotfi Sayahi, Nahed Mourad, Nathalie Dion

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Reports on language mixing involving Arabic often qualify that language as resistant to constraints operating on other language pairs. But many fail to situate the purported violations with respect to recipient and donor languages, making it impossible to ascertain whether these are exceptional code-switches or (nonce) borrowings; isolated cases or robust patterns. We address these issues through variationist analysis of Tunisian Arabic/French bilingual discourse. Focusing on conflict sites that reveal which grammar is operative when the other language is accessed, we compare quantitatively the behavior of lone French-origin nouns in Arabic with their counterparts in both donor and recipient languages. …

Ngos Creatively Navigating Donor And Governmental Restrictions In The Middle East And North Africa, Jessica David

Honors Theses and Capstones

Local governments’ regulations and donor organizations’ requirements create political and financial restrictions for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). As a result NGOs in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco must become creative in the ways they develop and implement projects. In order to be efficient and successful, NGOs use different techniques including creative means to fund their programs, partnerships with outside organizations, and creative uses of their resources.

Many NGOs will find creative solutions to navigate these restrictions. Some of the solutions will be similar, while others will be completely unique. Yet despite …

Overcoming Gender: The Impact Of The Persian Language On Iranian Women’S Confessional Literature, Farideh Dayanim Goldin

English Faculty Publications

[From the Introduction] The idea that language embodies patriarchal thought processes, severing women writers from the written language and from their own words, was first elaborated by the French feminist theorists Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. Irigaray argues, for example, that language generally denies women a distinct subjectivity, with the result that the voice of women has largely been excluded from mainstream cultural discourse (Donovan). In this chapter, I juxtapose this theory to the obstacles faced by Iranian women writers of life narratives. Is it possible that Persian could have impeded Iranian women’s literary aspirations, especially in the genre of …

Figurines From Tell Balatah/Shechem, Jacob A. Moody

Master's Theses

Problem

The Drew-­McCormick Expedition conducted six seasons of excavation at the site of Tell Balâtah/Shechem between 1957-­‐1968. During those campaigns they uncovered several anthropomorphic and zoomorphic (clay and stone) figurines. This study represents the initial research for those figurines and their eventual publication and will briefly review the pertinent research done on figurines from the Levant and provide a detailed catalogue of the available figurines from Tell Balâtah/Shechem.

Method

The 38 available figurines were studied and detailed drawings were provided for each. The known data associated with every figurine are specified (provenance, registration number, size, condition, physical description, etc.) and, …

Kořeny Stoleté České Tradice V Nebrasce, Hana Waisserova

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications

Do období po roce 1850 se datuje vlna české emigrace do tzv. Nového světa, tvořená především odpůrci rakouské monarchie, kteří nesouhlasili s konzervativním režimem. Migraci do USA motivovala rovněž možnost získat levně pozemky a usadit se ve svobodné zemi. V Nebrasce jako v mnoha jiných státech Unie byl vyhlášen tzv. Homestead Act, což znamenalo, že přistěhovalci mohli za malý administrativní poplatek získat pozemek, na němž museli v průběhu pěti let vybudovat dům a farmu. Pokud se jim to podařilo, pozemek si mohli nárokovat do svého vlastnictví. Tito přistěhovalci za nesmírně tvrdých podmínek budovali na prérii hliněné domy na způsob zemljanek …

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …

The Possibility Of Peace: Israeli Public Opinion And The Camp David Accords, Daniel L. Gerdes

Departmental Honors Projects

The Camp David Accords, September 5-17, 1978, were a momentous development in Middle East relations. For over 30 years Israel and her neighbors weathered periods of warfare and aggression, but when leaders from Egypt, Israel, and the United States descended on Camp David in the United States for two weeks of peace negotiations everything changed. Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin became the first leaders in the Middle East to negotiate peace after decades of war between the two countries. This research discerns the changes in Israeli public opinion on the peace process with Egypt that …

The Bronze Artifacts Of Tall Jalul, Jordan, Christine T. Chitwood

Master's Theses

Background

It is quite common at excavation sites throughout the Near East to uncover the remains of metallic artifacts, though the practice of investigating these objects has fluctuated over the past 50 years of archaeometallurgical studies. Early scholars of archaeometallurgy, such as R.F. Tylecote, employed the use of elemental analysis, studying early metallurgical technologies necessary to create metallic implements around Europe and the Near East and paying close attention to the resources and energy exerted to manufacture each instrument. Other researchers compiled typological comparisons, building cultural identities off of stylistic features from the material culture. Since then, technological and elemental …

My Travels In The Holy Land, Bud Robinson

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Turkish Identity In Poetry Before And After The 1928 Language Revolution, Angela Marie Wrage

Honors Program Theses

The 1928 language revolution in Turkey involved the change of the Turkish writing script from the Arabic to the Latin alphabet, as well as the elimination of Arabic and Persian loan words and associated imported grammar. In this study, we assessed the impact this language revolution had on Turkish identity by examining it through the lens of Ottoman and Turkish literature and poetry. To achieve this, we compared literary and poetic themes from before and after the language revolution; we also studied the activity of prolific writers from before and after the transition to determine what effect, if any, the …

Love By Adnan Sadduk, Mirko M. Hall

Transference

Translated from the Arabic with commentary by Mirko M. Hall.

A Bath And Always By Khaled Abdallah, Nicholas Swett

Transference

Translated from the Arabic with commentary by Nicholas Swett.

The Museumification Of Rumi’S Tomb: Deconstructing Sacred Space At The Mevlana Museum, Rose Aslan

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Tourists and pilgrims from across Turkey and around the world flock to the tomb of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), one of the greatest poets and Sufi masters in Islam. Since 1925, the Turkish government has relentlessly struggled to control Islamic influences in society and to channel people’s devotion to the memory of Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) and his secular ideology. This article argues that by restructuring the layout and presentation of the tomb complex of Rumi, and putting the sacred space through the process of museumification, the Turkish state has attempted to regulate the place in order to control …

Arab Spring Book Exhibit Bibliography And Call Numbers, Anna Gault, Heath Martin

Year of the Middle East Events

An exhibit of books about Arab Spring was held in the William T. Young Library from Oct. 2014 through Feb. 2015 in celebration of the Year of the Middle Year at the University of Kentucky. An annotated bibliography for the exhibit is available by clicking the Download button on the right.

Click here to view the online guide about the book exhibit.

Jean Sénac, Poet Of The Algerian Revolution, Kai G. Krienke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work presented here is an exploration of the poetry and life of Jean Sénac, and through Sénac, of the larger role of poetry in the political and social movements of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, mainly in Algeria and America. While Sénac was part of the European community in Algeria, his position regarding French rule changed dramatically over the course of the Algerian War, (between 1954 and 1962) and upon independence, he became one the rare French to return to his adopted homeland. I will argue, sometimes polemically, that Sénac was and should be considered a properly Algerian …

The Perceived Religiousness Of The Repertoire Of The Muslim Minority In France, Brian Mawyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

France is a secular society with a deeply rooted Catholic tradition. This environment affects the acceptability of demonstrations of Muslim religious identity. Muslim immigrants to France are often ghettoized into rent controlled housing in suburbs around the cities. Rejected from French society, these immigrants cling to what links them together, which is their religion. By the third generation, fluency in heritage languages declines greatly, yet the youth of the banlieues re-appropriate Arabic words into their French speech, leading to the emergence of a Muslim repertoire that is not always accepted by speakers of standard French. This thesis surveys French people …

Ulu Al Amr & Authority: The Central Pillars Of Sunni Political Thought, Hisseine Faradj

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation evaluates the political history of Islam through the prism of the Sunni conception of authority. It finds an historical red thread that explains the legal and political evolution of different types of Islamic government that have, instead of a European-type sovereign, the Ulu Al Amr (those in authority). In addition, it argues that it is the authority of Ulu Al Amr that legitimizes temporal power via legal rulings such as Wilayah al ahed (allegiance to a dynastic monarchy) and Wlayah al qaher (obedience to coercive power and rule). Those rulings are essential to legitimating historical change. Historical legal …