Congratulations to Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, authors of They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust, for winning the Samuel and Rose Cohen Memorial Award in Biography/Memoir from the Canadian Jewish Book Award jury at the Koffler Centre for the Arts. The Canadian Jewish Book Awards celebrates exceptional Canadian writing that touches upon Jewish culture, where this year marks the 20th Anniversary of the prestigious awards. The award-winning book showcases Kirshenblatt's paintings, and along with his daughter Barbara, provides commentary on his childhood memories of pre-World War II Poland. To learn more about the authors and the book, you can read the book's blog here.
Jennifer Heath is the author of eight books, an activist, curator and editor of The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (UC Press, May 2008). In her book and the blog below, Jennifer explores the meaning and mystery of veils worn by women and men across the globe. You can also check out the book's website here.
Please Note: Embedded at the end of the blog is a silent, loop video called AmbiVEILantby Tania Kamal-Eldin
By Jennifer Heath
In Turkey and France, it is outlawed. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, it is mandated.
The veil is deeply polarizing, a locus for the struggle between Islam and the West and between contemporary and traditional interpretations of Islam.
Yet veiling – of women, of men, and of sacred places and objects – has existed in countless cultures and religions for centuries. Perhaps it began when humans watched eclipses and observed the periodic shedding of animals’ outer bodily layer (feathers, skin, fur or horn, even pupas). Veils and veiling are found in the oldest myths, in folklore and fairytale and in the arts. The veil itself is mystery, even as it is the shroud that guards the mystery. As much as the veil is fabric or a garment, it is also a concept. Veils are the ethers beyond consciousness, the hidden hundredth name of god, the final passage into death, even the biblical apocalypse – the lifting of god’s veil to signal the “end times.”
I grew up in heavily Roman Catholic and later in Muslim countries, where veiling was common. In those days – as Egyptian feminist Huda Shaarawi observed in an earlier decade – a rural Italian or Greek woman looked not much different from, say, a rural Egyptian woman. How and why have we politicized customs so ancient their origins and meanings cannot necessarily be traced and certainly can’t be “blamed” on any group or event? When I say “we,” I do indeed mean all of us, East and West. We all collude in turning women’s bodies into battlegrounds – nowadays signified by the veil.
For The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics, I assembled twenty writers and scholars – Kecia Ali, Michelle Auerbach, Sarah C. Bell, Barbara Goldman Carrel, Eve Grubin, Roxanne Kamayani Gupta, Jana M. Hawley, Jasbir Jain, Mohja Kahf, Desiree Koslin, Laurene Lafontain, Shireen Malik, Maliha Masood, Marjane Satrapi, Aisha Shaheed, Rita Stephan, Pamela K. Taylor, Ashraf Zahedi, Dinah Zeiger and Sherifa Zuhur – to engage received wisdom about the veil, to explore its multiple histories and layered sacred, sensual, and socio-political truths in memory- and research-based chapters that speak to the veil throughout human imagination. These marvelous contributors, who represent a wide range of societies, religions, ages, location, races, and accomplishments, examine the veil in its myriad guises; they elucidate, criticize, and/or praise the practice.
The overriding concern expressed in these chapters is the exploitation of the veil for political agendas. Across time, veiling and unveiling have been forced upon women. Demonization seems especially virulent today with respect to the Muslim veil, perceived by the West as a challenge to modernity and secular enlightenment and even as a terrorist threat, while among some Muslims, it has become a symbol of solidarity and resistance.
But today’s ideological battles are merely subterfuge, distraction hindering feminist progress and blinding us to the increasing feminization of poverty. Conflicts over covering actually veil the realities we must face -- and fix -- of women’s disadvantages, which feed a destructive spiral of impoverishment, population growth, and environmental degradation worldwide.
Meanwhile, veiling is a woman’s – or a man’s – right to choose.
Patty Kelly provides a voice for the women of the Zona Galactica, a legal brothel in Chiapas, Mexico. These women work hard in a government-sanctioned industry, but are often treated with disrespect, scorn, and indifference, eroding their dignity and chipping away at their dreams. In Lydia's Open Door, Kelly explores this experience and brings it to life through conversations with the women. She writes as an advocate and listens as a friend, enhancing the women's personal stories with economic and historical background.
"This exceptional book makes several key contributions to the field and
shows how freedom and anxiety, and the market and morality, tensely
coexist in the business of sex. . . . Kelly's analysis is conveyed
through vivid portraits of the lives of sex workers, showing that the
women involved are neither victims nor heroines but something else:
actors caught between agency and constraint."–Roger N. Lancaster,
author of The Trouble with Nature
"In this tour de force of feminist anthropology, Patty Kelly gives her
heart to the remarkable women who toil in the bawdy sweatshops of the
Zona Galactica, a 'reformed' red-light district in the Chiapas capital
of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In fact, as Kelly shows, it is just the ultimate
low-wage industrial district."–Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and In Praise of Barbarians
"The clarity of Kelly's perspective is neither apologetic, nor
presumptive (as is usually the case); her focus is always on the
political context of these women's lives. Patty Kelly writes like a
poet and novelist, so much so that this work begs to be a movie."–Carol
Leigh, a.k.a. "Scarlot Harlot," author of Unrepentant Whore
Mark Leone's The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis has been awarded the James Deetz Book Award of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In a review of the book, the American Journal of Archaeology called it: "One of the most innovative and successful long-term research projects in the country." The prize will be formally awarded at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
Who was it who said nothing forbids us from telling the truth, laughing? It must have been some old-souled Roman or such (OK, it was Horace), but the preference for many educated Americans today is to mix their serious interests with a good dose of levity. It's a yin-yang sort of thing that some pundits just don't get.
This past Sunday, in an article from the New York Times, Julie Bosman noted that fans of fake-news comedy shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report seem to be big buyers of non-fiction work. Online sales for a book normally skyrocket after an appearance on one of these shows. As Julie mentions, such shows "have become the most reliable venues for promoting weighty books whose authors would otherwise end up on 'The Early Show' on CBS looking like they showed up at the wrong party."
So what's going on here: publicists and authors opting for Jon Stewart over Charlie Rose and Jay Leno? It's all a reflection of the audience demographics. Who else, for instance, would want to talk to a scholarly author, an anthropologist and paleontologist, about sweaty skin, lubricated, pierced and tatooed? The Early Show? Please.
No longer dismissed as marginalized slackers or YouTubeheads, those who patronize the world of comedy represent a diverse spectrum of the population—and that spectrum is quite erudite and salty.
Early last week, after spending much of the past year conducting research in China and Kenya, Nina G. Jablonski landed on the pages of The New York Times Science Times. Jablonski, author of the recently published Skin: A Natural History, sat down with journalist Claudia Dreifus to discuss our largest, most visible, and arguably least appreciated organ: our skin. Even though, as Jablonski quips, “Skin has been studied to absolute death by dermatologists,” so many fascinating questions remain. Why are we so sweaty? Why does our skin come in so many different colors? And what accounts for our seemingly insatiable appetite for cosmetics, tattoos, and piercings? For answers, read the full interview and watch the bonus videos that put our trips to the tattoo parlor and beauty salon in perspective.
Congratulations to Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, authors of They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust, for winning the Samuel and Rose Cohen Memorial Award in Biography/Memoir from the Canadian Jewish Book Award jury at the Koffler Centre for the Arts. The Canadian Jewish Book Awards celebrates exceptional Canadian writing that touches upon Jewish culture, where this year marks the 20th Anniversary of the prestigious awards. The award-winning book showcases Kirshenblatt's paintings, and along with his daughter Barbara, provides commentary on his childhood memories of pre-World War II Poland. To learn more about the authors and the book, you can read the book's blog here.
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