basit kareem iqbal
@biqbal
anthropologist, editor at mcmaster university. author of THE DREAD HEIGHTS: TRIBULATION AND REFUGE AFTER THE SYRIAN REVOLUTION ( bookmarking in the wasteland
just got locked in the omari mosque minaret (now restored after it was targeted/destroyed by the assad regime)
brought friends to hamilton to start my sabbatical off right. starting my opening remarks with the terms of this old adonis poem (problematic, i know..)
our history of the present issue is now out from @dukepress.bsky.social ! on multiple registers of the "incapacitation" of tradition read.dukeupress.edu/history-of-t... hooray
the beginning of ibn arabi's chapter on the waystation of trial (#317). "why did he not from the first build that house / to last, its life not to perish? / it did nothing to deserve ruin / so why did he raise it up and why did he lay it waste / the hand of trial but toyed with us and it..."
enshittification of everything, case in point (foul image advertising this real anthro news article: www.anthropology-news.org/articles/ten...) burn it all!!!!!!!
AAA and AAR panels on THE DREAD HEIGHTS coming up next week, organized by milad and ali
launch of THE DREAD HEIGHTS at my favourite bookstore around, good night
ethics of hope and despair, week 5: what of the eternal harm lurking all around? (mcmaster museum of art exhibit) share.google/y7ZI6WXTYqSK...
home from a week camping to a box of advance copies -- grateful to the press and everyone (alhamdulillah). looks like there will be a book launch here in hamilton in september and critics' panels at AAA and AAR in november
tried translating a poem by doha kahlout today, after her stunning essay in NYRB online. very difficult: the language is too taut, mature. terms repeat within the poem: of shuddering, the desolation of hope, recollection at night. we are not addressed here, nor shown a way out. instead we are let in
lots of clichees about the capacity of language to bear witness, etc etc, but also just, there are some stunning poems in this
aaron eldridge, "dispossessing property: notes from monastic struggle in lebanon" read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/arti... check it
today's reading group: finished vol 2 of derrida's hospitality seminar. massignon: "the situation in algeria is becoming so dreadful...that i can no longer eat the bread of my family and i ask god to make me die" derrida: "these sentences...have a resonance i do not need to underscore"