-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fall at Mizna!
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:21:36 -0700
From: Mizna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Mizna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fall at Mizna!
1. Journal Release Party - September 22
2. Marcel Khalife - October 19
3. Walid Raad - October 25
4. Sinan Antoon - November
4. Ibtisam Barakat - December
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Journal Release Party
Saturday, September 22
Loft Literary Center. Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, 7 ?
10 pm.
Join Mizna in celebrating the publication of the 20th issue of its literary journal. This event will feature writers from the journal reading from their work. Co-presented with the Loft Literary Center and Dunn Bros. Coffee.
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Marcel Khalife
Friday, October 19
Cedar Cultural Center. 416 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis. 8 pm.
$50 reserved premium seating. $30 general admission. Lebanon 's composer/musician Marcel Khalifé is a master and innovator of the oud and a pioneer of contemporary Arab song. Renowned throughout the Middle East for over three decades, he has sustained a following akin to pop artists. In 2005, he was named UNESCO Artist for Peace. Performing on oud and vocals, he will be accompanied by the Al Mayadine Ensemble in a program featuring works from his new recording Taqasim, as well as selections from his older repertoire.
In his association with great contemporary Arab poets, particularly Palestinian
poet par excellence, Mahmoud Darwish, he seeks to renew the character of the
Arabic song, to break its stereotypes, and to advance the culture of the
society that surrounds it. On his journey, Marcel Khalifé invents and creates
original music, a novel world of sounds, freed of all established rules. This
language elevates him to the level of an ambassador of his own culture and to
the vanguard of Near Eastern music innovators. Co-presented with the Cedar
Cultural Center.
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Walid Raad
Thursday, October 25
Walker Arts Center. 1750 Hennepin, Minneapolis MN 55403. 7 pm. Free. Join artist Walid Raad for a performative lecture on his writing and visual art, which grapples with the representation of traumatic events of collective historical dimensions and the ways that film, video, and photography function as documents of physical and psychological violence. His recent work includes The Atlas Group (1989?2004), a project composed of audio, visual, and literary elements dealing with the contemporary history of Lebanon , particularly the Lebanese wars from 1975 to 1991. Raad teaches at Cooper Union in New York , and his pieces have been shown at documenta 11 in Kassel , Germany , the Venice Biennale, and the Whitney Biennial, among many others. Co-presented with Walker Arts Center.
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Sinan Antoon
Friday, November 2
Playwright's Center. 2301 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406. 7 pm
Publication reading of his book I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody. (more at mizna.org)
About I'Jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody
An inventory of the General Security headquarters in central Baghdad reveals an
obscure manuscript. Written by a young man in detention, the prose moves from
prison life, to adolescent memories, to frightening hallucinations, and what
emerges is a portrait of life in Saddam's Iraq . In the tradition of Kafka's
The Trial, or Orwell's 1984, I'jaam offers an insight into life under an
oppressive political regime and how that oppression works. This is a stunning
debut by a major young Iraqi writer-in-exile.
Praise for I'Jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody
"He evokes a Baghdad heavy with Orwellian overtones . . . often he strikes the right
chord, to haunting effect." ? The Village Voice
" . . . a fictional memoir ? of a student/poet in solitary detention for having
ridiculed Saddam Hussein. . . . The student's dreams, memories and fantasies are eerily
beautiful ? he enters a reality far preferable to the one he has lived in for most of his
life." ? Los Angeles Times
About Sinan Antoon
Sinan Antoon's teaching and research interests lie in pre-modern Arabo-Islamic culture,
and contemporary Arab culture and politics. His dissertation, "The Poetics of the
Obscene," is the first study of the 10th-century Arab poet Ibn al-Hajjaj. In 2002,
he was awarded a Mellon Grant to support his research in the Middle East .
His Gallatin course (at NYU) offerings include The Body in the Arabic
Tradition, Arabic Poetry, The Qur'an, and a freshman seminar on Exile.
Antoon's poems and essays (in Arabic and English) have appeared in The Nation,
Middle East Report, al-Ahram Weekly, Banipal and the Journal of Palestine
Studies, among others. He has also published a collection of poems, Mawshur
Muballal bil-Huroob (A Prism; Wet with Wars), and a novel, I`jaam (with City
Lights this year.) His poetry was anthologized in Iraqi Poetry Today.
He has also contributed numerous translations of Arabic poetry into English, and his
co-translation of Mahmud Darwish's poetry was nominated for the PEN Prize for translation
in 2004. Antoon returned to his native Baghdad in 2003 as a member of InCounter
Productions to film a documentary, "About Baghdad," about the lives of Iraqis
in a post-Saddam occupied Iraq , which he co-produced and co-directed. He is a senior
editor for Arab Studies Journal, a member of Pen America , a contributing editor to
Banipal, and a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report.
Sinan was just interviewed on PRI's "The World" and "Democracy Now". I'jaam: An Iraqi
Rhapsody has received excellent reviews in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. In recent
years, he was interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered."
__________________________
Ibtisam Barakat
Friday, December 7
Loft Literary Center. Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South , Minneapolis, 7-10 pm.
Publication reception of her book, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood. About Tasting the Sky. A Palestinian Childhood
In a spare, eloquent memoir, Barakat recalls life under military occupation. In
1981 the author, then in high school, boarded a bus bound for Ramallah. The bus
was detained by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on the West Bank , and she was
taken to a detention center before being released. The episode triggers
sometimes heart-wrenching memories of herself as a young child, at the start of
the 1967 Six Days' War, as Israeli soldiers conducted raids, their planes
bombed her home, and she fled with her family across the border to Jordan . She
also recalls living under occupation and the thrill of being able to attend the
United Nations school for refugees. The political upheaval is always in the
background, but for young Barakat, much of the drama was in incidents that took
place in everyday life. What makes the memoir so compelling is the immediacy of
the child's viewpoint, which depicts both conflict and daily life without
exploitation or sentimentality.
About Ibtisam Barakat
Ibtisam S. Barakat is a Palestinian-American writer, poet and educator. Her work centers on healing the hurts of
racism, sexism, and the oppression of young people. Ibtisam was a delegate to the United Nation's conference on the
elimination of racism, which was held in Durban , South Africa , August 2001. She leads Write Your Life seminars and
speaks frequently on using personal narrative and literature to repair social relationships, and toward the collective
authoring of a world fully welcoming to everyone. Recently, Ibtisam was interviewed at NPR's Talk of The Nation, and
sponsored by the Harvard-based Arab Educational Forum, she led writing workshops for young people and educators in
Morocco . Selected Publications: "The Second Day" in Shattered, Ed. Jennifer Armstrong (2002); "Marked
for Destruction", in Why Do They Hate Me: Young Lives Caught in War & Conflict, Ed. L. Holliday (1999);
"Beating a Bully", in 25 Read-Aloud Stories For Teaching Powerful Writing (2001); "The
Home
Within", reprint, in The Flag of Childhood, Ed. Naomi Shihab-Nye (2002).
Co-presented with the Loft Literary Center and Dunn Bros. Coffee.
_________________________
Mizna is a forum promoting Arab culture that values diversity in the Arabic
community. We are committed to giving voice to Arab Americans on the local,
national and international level through literature, speakers and community
events. Visit our website at http://www.mizna.org
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