Articles

Arab Blues (Un divan à Tunis) 2019 comedy, drama, French and Arabic, with English subtitles Directed by Manele Labidi Running time 1 hour 28 minutes In Arab Blues, nearly ten years have passed since the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi that fueled Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, and deposed the country’s longtime dictator, Ben Ali.  While Read more…

Determined to Stay by Jody Sokolower Interlink/Olive Branch Press 2021 ISBN 9781623718886 Part travelogue, part journalism, and part educational primer, Determined to Stay is Jody Sokolower’s contribution to the Palestinian right to self-determined existence. A social studies teacher based in California’s progressive, multicultural San Francisco Bay Area, Sokolower had always thought of herself as Read more…

Breaking Bread, Building Bridges (2020) Directed by Beth Elise Hawk Running time 1 hour 25 minutes “Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start.” —Anthony Bourdain Breaking Bread, Building Bridges tells the story of Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel’s culinary attempt at peacemaking. The first Arab to win the Israeli Read more…

Jaime Scholnick, a Los Angeles-based artist and adjunct professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona is under pressure from university administration as a result of unfounded accusations of “anti-Semitism” by a former student. In November 2021, the associate director of Cal Poly’s Office of Equity and Compliance informed Scholnick that a student Read more…

This was first published by Project Censored Politics As Sound: The Washington, DC Hardcore Scene, 1978-1983 Shayna L. Maskell University of Illinois Press (October 2021) ISBN 978-0-252-08622-9 Premised on the idea that the development, experience, and messaging of music are indivisible from geography and chronology, Shayna L. Maskell, professor in the Read more…

Mischa Geracoulis interviews political historian Maria Armoudian about her newest book, Lawyers Beyond Borders, Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts. Read her review. Maria Armoudian is the author of three books, Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline Journalists, Their Jobs and an Increasingly Perilous Future, Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role Read more…

“The human rights cases in these pages are among the most unlikely ones slated for victory.” Dismantled in a manner more dictatorial than democratic by the purportedly morally superior pulpit of the United States presidency, the guardrails of human rights came crashing down. Wielding a self-righteous vengeance beyond biblical proportions, Read more…

This Is Not A Movie: Robert Fisk and the Politics of Truth (2019), the work of Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, Yung Chang, is, overarchingly, a study of journalism’s position in today’s corporatized media, amid weaponized language and fake news, and its role in reporting on the Middle East. Known for his cinematic explorations of Read more…