Art In The Middle East: A Cultural Tapestry of Music, Dance, and Rituals

This paper "Art In The Middle East: A Cultural Tapestry of Music, Dance, and Rituals" explores the profound significance of artistic expressions in the Middle East, emphasizing their role in reflecting cultural identity, social cohesion, and historical continuity. It examines various art forms, particularly music, dance, and rituals, as dynamic mediums for preserving and transforming cultural identities within the region\u27s complex social fabric. The paper highlights traditional dances like the Dabke and the Whirling Dervishes, illustrating how these performances serve as powerful expressions of community, spirituality, and resistance. Additionally, it discusses the impact of globalization on contemporary Middle Eastern art, showcasing how artists blend traditional and modern influences to address social issues and challenge cultural norms. Ultimately, the paper argues that art in the Middle East is not merely entertainment but a vital component of the region\u27s political and social landscapes, fostering a sense of belonging and resilience amidst adversity

Écrire contre l’hégémonie : résistance postcoloniale de l’Inde française dans Le thinnai d’Ari Gautier

La voix littéraire des écrivains francophones indiens est largement marginalisée par comparaison avec celle des anglophones. L’étude qui suit, se fond sur la mise en lumière d’un roman de l’écrivain franco-indien Ari Gautier, intitulé Le thinnai (2018). Situé dans un village des hors-caste à Pondichéry, ancienne colonie française en Inde, ce roman historique fait entendre des voix résistantes de personnages postcoloniaux : franco-indiens, créoles et colons français. Pris au piège du statut liminal entre français et indien, et du système de caste qui les entoure, ces personnages résistent à toute hégémonie. La présente étude identifie cette résistance non pas comme barrière à leur expression mais comme l’occasion de créer une production créative et subversive. C’est aux trois vecteurs de la voix résistante que s’intéresse cet article : le mythe (contre le mythe colonial), la mémoire (contre l’amnésie de l’histoire officielle), la langue (contre la pureté du français). Malgré sa marginalisation, l’écriture indienne d’expression française, comme Le thinnai, mérite d’être envisagée comme une voix indéniable dans les études postcoloniales francophones d’aujourd’hui

Le retour difficile des œuvres de Shan Sa en Chine

Shan Sa fait ses débuts en littérature avec son premier ouvrage intitulé Porte de la paix céleste, paru en 1997 aux éditions du Rocher. Son œuvre dévoile la splendeur poétique et traditionnelle de la culture chinoise, ce qui en fait l’une des écrivaines les plus influentes d’expression française d’origine chinoise. Elle est connue dans le monde de la littérature francophone pour ses romans Les quatre vies du saule (1999) et La joueuse de go (2001). Shan Sa a tenté de faire retourner ses écrits français en Chine après la publication de son deuxième roman, mais a rencontré des difficultés à traduire son texte en chinois de manière complète et fidèle. Les réactions du lecteur chinois à ses œuvres, notamment la controverse suscitée par son choix de sujets sensibles, méritent autant d’attention que les difficultés rencontrées lors du processus de retour. Les divergences dans les réactions des lecteurs chinois et français reflètent les différences quant à la réception et à l’exportation de ses œuvres. Cet article identifie les facteurs susceptibles d’expliquer les obstacles qui entravent le retour de ses œuvres sur la scène littéraire chinoise et explore les modalités par lesquelles ses romans s’adaptent aux réalités socioculturelles et politiques du pays d’origine

Football, the 2022 Qatar World Cup, and Sportswashing: Do Western perspectives recognise the dangers of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism in their approach?

Alongside the Summer Olympics, the FIFA Men’s World Cup is one of the two most popular sporting events on the planet. As a truly transnational spectacle, it represents a special opportunity for the host to project an attractive public image around the globe. Qatar has attained exceptional wealth, primarily through gas and oil exports, and has been enacting innovative foreign policies, such as hosting the World Cup in 2022 with the intention of generating an attractive public image of legitimacy, which grants the ‘soft power’ that enables them to transcend their small state constraints. In this commentary, we present our opinion on how before, during, and after the tournament, Western/British media portrayed a narrative that was based on a polarised Western-Middle Eastern cultural conflict that significantly limited Qatar’s ability to transform their hosting of the World Cup into a more positive public image. We frame this by outlining how this approach and these beliefs are essentially driven by Orientalist accusations that position Western ideals as superior to Arabic ones, and we contend, using a Weberian approach, that this was – essentially – an unfair turn of events given the still young (comparable to the West) historical development of Arab states.   &nbsp

Bhutanese Elementary Teachers’ Assessment Conceptions

The purpose of this study was to investigate Bhutanese elementary teachers\u27 conceptions about assessments to determine teachers’ inclination towards improving conceptions (formative) or accountability conceptions (summative). Assessment conceptions were measured using the abridged version of CoA-III Abridged (CoA-III A) inventory proposed by Brown (2006) which includes four pre-determined assessment conceptions: assessment for improvement, assessment for student accountability, assessment for school accountability, and assessment as an irrelevance. The data was collected from 111 elementary teachers using an online survey questionnaire. Findings indicate that teachers conceive that the purpose of assessments is for improvement. They also conceived of assessments as irrelevant. There was a strong positive correlation between the conception of assessments for improvement and student accountability and a positive association between improvement and irrelevance conceptions. It was concluded that teachers have positive conceptions about assessment, but they often experience an assessment practice dilemma between the improvement and accountability purposes of assessment

Challenges and Perceptions of Mathematical Modelling Among Norwegian Pre-Service Teachers

Mathematical modelling can be described as “[…] the process of translating between the real world and mathematics in both directions” (Blum & Ferri, 2009, p. 45). Both students and teachers often find mathematical modelling challenging. Thus, it is important that future teachers are aware of the challenges their students might encounter when working on this topic. Based on observations and interviews, this study examines obstacles that Norwegian pre-service teachers face in mathematical modelling, and how they perceive their own solution process after learning about mathematical modelling. The study draws on a seven-step modelling cycle described by Blum (2015), and reveals that the pre-service teachers, due to the lack of assumptions, struggle to give meaningful interpretations of their mathematical results. Their perceptions about having to provide their answer as a general expression, are found to be related to their expectations stemming from classroom activities different from student-centered modelling sessions

The Evolution of Invitational Education: From POP to TOP

Edited and reprinted with permission from Education Toda

Caste, Constitution, Court, Equality: The Social Justice Imbroglio in Contemporary India

How do democratic ideals and constitutional provisions of inclusive citizenship and “reasonable classification” of universal rights to combat social oppression and promote social justice get worked out in the crannies of state policies, citizen politics and legislative and legal pronouncements? This article addresses these issues by revisiting the convoluted trajectory of positive discrimination (termed “reservation”) in India as an illustrative and instructive example. It combines an innovative reading of Constitutional Assembly Debates, constitutional provisions, constitutional amendments, and crucial Supreme Court rulings to trace the gradual undoing of constitutional ideals and provisions. An exploration of changing state policies in tune with the imperatives of a neo-liberal Hindu authoritarian regime, and shifting electoral demands of privileged upper castes and classes, allows the article to underscore a radical shift in ethos that has resulted in an interrogation of constitutional provisions for social equality and justice. A lack of consensus on the justifiability of (re)distribution of resources by extending special benefits to the socially suppressed (“backward”) castes and classes of citizens, has laid bare the ambiguities inherent in constitutional ideals and provisions, highlighted the resourceful use of such ambiguities by the socially entitled citizens to disavow caste-based social oppression, and insist on economic weakness that hampers equal opportunity as the fair ground for “reservation.” A shift in emphasis from “social backwardness” of the oppressed to “economic weakness” of the advantaged in the language of the state ratified by the Supreme Court, underscores the undemocratic consequences of democratic provisions. A serious interrogation of the fairness of reasonable classification of equality and the justifiability of distribution on the part of the socially privileged, has served to disavow calls for social justice and recognition of difference by the oppressed, and overturned the basic premise of equal respect that ground liberal theories of social justice and social democracy

Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Repression of Protest and Dissent in Canada: The Wet’suwet’en Land Defense Movement & #ShutDownCanada

The Wet’suwet’en land defense movement and the allied #ShutDownCanada protests remain some of the most highly publicized anti-pipeline protest events of the last decade. This protest movement offers an insight into how Canada protects and reproduces its accumulation by resource extraction strategy. Situating this research within an observed global phenomenon of growing intolerance to protest and dissent in democratic contexts, I illuminate the ways through which opposition against extractive projects is repressed by the Canadian settler colonial state in the contemporary era of neoliberalism. Drawing on the political economy framework of “authoritarian neoliberalism,” I elucidate the legal, discursive, and coercive means through which extractive projects are insulated from public opposition. These means are repressing the democratic right to protest in Canada and indicate that Canada is no exception to a broader global deterioration of democracy under a political-economic system that is antagonistic to social solidarity and collective action. Moreover, these repressive strategies exacerbate the violent and dispossessive nature of Canada’s settler colonial extractive capitalism

Taking Attunement Further

Attunement has been widely discussed across the post- and environmental humanities. However, might its common conflation with attention inadvertently reiterate humanist norms? This article explores three different artistic approaches to attunement — that of Philip Samartzis, AM Kanngieser, and Jenna Sutela — to elaborate differences between attentional and attunement modes of sensory relation. Attention is often understood as a kind of filter or interface for consciousness, preventing the external world from overwhelming the mind, or as a kind spotlight, cast outwards from internal consciousness. Both models reinstate the humanist notion that ‘the perceiver and the object of perception are discrete entities’ (Chiew, 2017: 48). Recent scholarship on attunement has been helpful in underscoring sensation’s situatedness, reciprocity and relationality. Yet its close association with attention means it inadvertently falls back on notions of mind/world, sensor/sensed, and cause/effect. How might attunement be otherwise understood as a non-subjective epistemological event in situ