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Books About Books from Around the NGL (and Wider Bodleian Libraries)

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A blog post on this topic has been a long time in the making for me, because it has always seemed such a perfect fit for the Nizami Ganjavi Library and its collections. For, the achievements and importance of Islamic literary culture are rightly celebrated. However, as I dug into the subject of book history in the NGL, I was very much interested in looking at specific literary cultures within the Islamic world and their nuanced differences. I also found myself inspired by books on this topic from other parts of the NGL such as the Korean Studies Library and Eastern Christianity Library, as well as books on South Asian book production from the Bodleian Off-Site Storage. Furthermore, it was not long until I was spoilt for choice on which books to feature. Therefore, I decided to narrow the focus of this display to look at the techniques of book production used across the regions featured in the NGL and the social factors that have affected and been affected by those techniques over time.

Book display for 'Books About Making Books'. Various books arranged on a blue table. There is a also a brighter blue backboard with images and posters pinned to it.
Photo of the display for Books About Making Books

A very good place to start with such an exploration is to start with the aforementioned Islamic literary culture to gain an understanding of how that culture and its books were formed. For this reason, I have included Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition and In the Author’s Hand: Holograph and Authorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition. While the former takes a wide-ranging approach, looking at texts from various times and places, the latter looks at the relationship between one Muslim community and their manuscripts.

Book cover for Ibadi Muslims of North Africa
Front cover for In the Author’s Hand

A good follow-on from this might be Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books in which James E. Montgomery dives deeply into the way that a medieval proliferation of books affected life in the Abbasid Caliphate seen through the lens of the life and work of highly influential author and thinker. Then, in Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Ahmed Al Shamsy relates how this long-established history of book production was again upended by the nineteenth-century adoption of the printing press and Arabic movable type. He relates how, through deciding which manuscripts to prioritise for printing, the intellectuals and publishers involved solidified a key corpus of classical texts, and, in some cases were keenly aware of the political implications of their choices. Elsewhere in the display, Tyler Williams tells a very similar story about the history of Hindi texts in If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi, which I found a really interesting point of interdisciplinary comparison.

Cover for Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books
Cover for Rediscovering the Islamic Classics
Cover of If All the World Were Paper

You might also recognise some books from previous displays, such as Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul by J. F. Coakley, featured in our ‘Welcome to AMES’ display all the way back in Michaelmas term last year. Coakley, who is an expert on Syriac language and literature and collector of types in non-Roman scripts, is also represented in the display by The Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Types, 1537-1958. He furthermore, owns his own printing press – Jericho Press – and many of its publications can be found in the NGL and wider Bodleian Libraries.

Cover for Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul
Cover of The Typography of Syriac

The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press and Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period might also be familiar from the International Women’s Day display. A good companion volume to Writing Women in Korea added to this display is Women Pre-Scripted: Forging Modern Roles Through Korean Print highlight how from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Korean women have used the power of print and publishing to seek greater autonomy and self-expression.

Book cover of The Women’s Awakening in Egypt
Front cover of Writing Women in Korea
Cover for Women Pre-Scripted

However, the history of printing and book production in Korea goes back much farther, as outlined by Byeng-Sen Park in Korean Printing: From its Origins to 1910. For example, the book details how Korean printed text began with woodblock printing, in which full texts would be carved and stamped onto paper. One such woodblock can be seen on display in the Window on Korea room in the NGL. This example is from the nineteenth century and shows how, even after the popularisation of movable type, woodblocks continued to be used in Korea.

The nineteenth-century woodblock from the Window on Korea Room

However, Korea is also home to the earliest extant text printed using movable type from 1377. Park also relates how this early development of printing was closely tied to the development of hanji or traditional Korean paper. Made from the bark of the paper mulberry, hanji has long been renowned for its combination of durability and strength with fineness and flexibility. Exactly how long is a matter of some debate and the book Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper explains the various answers to this question.

Cover for Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper
Cover of Hanji Unfurled

Approaching paper-making from a different angle, I have also included two reports – one from 1979 and one from 1989 – examining the challenges and opportunities faced by the Indian paper industry at a key period of growth. Issues discussed include assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of various homegrown pulp materials, machinery required, particular areas of growth and relevant government policies. Furthermore, the earlier report, written by V. Podder, also includes a short history of paper in India from its beginnings in Bengal in the nineteenth century. For a more in-depth look at this topic, one can also find The Bengali Book: History of Printing and Book Making, which outlines the importance of Bengal to the Indian print industry. As a pictorial representation of this importance, I have included on the display an image of a printing press belonging to Panchanan Karmakar, the inventor of the Bangla font (pictured below).

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some relevant online resources available via SOLO. For a short while now, the Bodleian Libraries have had access to the database Muteferriqa which is an invaluable resource for Ottoman Turkish materials from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library database which contains works spanning over four centuries. One e-book I would like to highlight as well, is Image and imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911. Many other books in this display are also available online, and I very much encourage you to explore both on SOLO and on the library shelves.

Bibliography

H. S. AbiFarès, Arabic Typography: A Comprehensive Sourcebook, London, Saqi, 2001.

G. N. Atiyeh, The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1995.

B. Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009.

F. Bauden, In the Author’s Hand: Holograph and Authorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition, Leiden, Brill, 2020.

D. Behrens-Abouseif, The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517): Scribes, Libraries and Market, Leiden, Brill, 2018.

G. K. Bosch, J. Carswell and G. Petherbridge, Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking, Chicago, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 1981.

P. J. Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911, Albany N.Y., State University of New York Press, 2000.

J. F. Coakley, The Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Types, 1537-1958, New Castle DE, Oak Knoll, 2006.

J. F. Coakley, Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul: With an Appendix Containing the Syriac Books Printed at the Chaldean Press, Mosul, Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press, 2009.

J. F. Coakley, ‘ABOUT’, Jericho Press, accessed 8 June 2026.

A. El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020.

M. J. Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700 to 1750, Leiden, Brill, 1999.

M. Ibn Bādīs, Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early Chemistry and Pharmacology, trans. M. Levey, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1962.

International Symposium on the Printing History in East and West, Printing and Publishing Culture: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium, Cheongju, Cheongju Early Printing Museum, 2000.

M. H. Khan, The Bengali Book: History of Printing and Book Making, 1667-1866, Dhaka, Bangla Academy, 1999.

A. Lee, Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking, Ann Arbor MI, Legacy Press, 2012.

J. Lee, Women Pre-Scripted: Forging Modern Roles Through Korean Print, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2015.

P. M. Love, Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

J. E. Montgomery, Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2013.

S. Nir, The Order and Disorder of Communication: Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 2024.

E. Oğuzhan et. al., Mucibince Amel Oluna: Türk Matbaa Tarihi I: Matbaa Kurulurken, Istanbul, Ötüken, 2025.

B. Park, Korean Printing: From its Origins to 1910, Seoul, Jimoondang, 2003.

V. Podder, Paper Industry in India: A Study, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1979.

Y. A. Rao, The Paper Industry in India: Status and Prospects, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1989.

G. Roper (ed.), Historical Aspects of Printing and Publishing in Languages of the Middle East: Papers from the Third Symposium on the History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East, University of Leipzig, September 2008, Leiden, Brill, 2014.

O. Sabev, Waiting for Müteferrika: Glimpses on Ottoman Print Culture, Brighton MA, Academic Studies Press, 2018.

P. Son, Early Korean Typography, Seoul, 1982.

T. W. Williams, If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi, New York, Columbia University Press, 2024.

S. Yi, Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper, Seoul, Heyoenamsa, 2012.

Celebrating International Women’s Day at the NGL! 

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As another March has come around, not only has that brought longer, lighter days, but also International Women’s Day and the opportunity to celebrate the lives and work of brilliant women around the world! Here at the NGL is a wonderful place to do so with collections covering many, many geographical regions including but not limited to South Korea, the Philippines, India, Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, Palestine, Senegal, and Kazakhstan. In both this blog and the display that goes with it, there are books on women’s experiences covering genres and subjects from activism, religious history, novels, drama, and poetry. 

I was particularly inspired by the variety of books on women’s activism, such as Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal, and The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990.  

Book covers for Wrapping Authority, The History of Doing, and Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora.

One such book – Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide which tells the stories of ten Uyghur women’s experiences and advocacy – particularly stood out to me as an example of how women’s stories in the NGL collections often show the intersection between feminism and anticolonial critique. Other examples include the poetry of Suheir Hammad, who challenges orientalist stereotypes through her work, and the book Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period which highlights how Korean women writers used translation to exercise agency while under Japanese rule.  

Book covers for Born Palestinian Born Black and Writing Women in Korea.

I also especially want to highlight the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, who was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature at the end of last year. She is represented in the display by several books including her debut title, Pinhan, and Three Daughters of Eve – a story which I highly recommend and which oscillates in setting between Istanbul and Oxford.  

The cover of Pinhan
The book cover for Three Daughters of Eve
Photo of Elif Shafak

I really hope you are also inspired by the voices of the women featured in this display and that you continue to explore the women’s narratives that can be found throughout the NGL and the Bodleian Libraries’ collections – because this display is far from the full story!  

Bibliography 

M. Abisaab and M. Hartman, What the War Left Behind: Women’s Stories of Resistance and Struggle in Lebanon, trans. C. Nasrallah, Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 2024. 

M. Bano and H. Kalmbach, Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority, Leiden, Brill, 2012. 

B. Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009. 

Z. Batayeva and S. Fairweather-Vega (eds.), Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, New York, Gaudy Boy LLC, 2022. 

K. Bhasin and R. Menon, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1998. 

N. Bhatia, Performing Women/Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics, and Dissent in North India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2010. 

P. Chang, Women’s Experiences and Feminist Practices in South Korea, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2005. 

M. Díez and J. Mathews (eds.), Daughters of the Bear: An Anthology of Korean Women’s Stories, Dallas, University Press of America, 2004. 

S. Furayḥ, Creativity & Exuberance in Arab Women’s Poetry: (From the Sixth to the Twentieth Centuries), Kuwait, Ministry of Information Government Printing Press, 2005. 

J. S. Ḥaddād, I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman, London, Saqi, 2010. 

S. Hammad, Born Palestinian, Born Black, Brooklyn NY, UpSet Press, 2010. 

N. Handal (ed.), The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, New York, Interlink Books, 2001. 

S. Haqqani, Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender, London, Oneworld Academic, 2024. 

F. Hasan, Voices in Verses: Women’s Poetry and Cultural Memory in Nineteenth Century India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024. 

J. Hill, Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2018. 

K. Hossein, A History of Islam in 21 Women, London, Oneworld, 2020. 

U. Hüsken, Laughter, Creativity, and Perseverance: Female Agency in Buddhism and Hinduism, New York, Oxford Unversity Press, 2022. 

T. Hyun, Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2003. 

R. Khanna, Algeria cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present, Stanford CA, Stnford University Press, 2008. 

Y. Kim (ed.), Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists, trans. Y. Kim, Ithaca NY, East Asia Program Cornell University, 2017. 

R. Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990, London, Verso, 1997. 

D. Mahmut, S. J. Palmer, and A. Udun, Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 

L. S. Majaj, T. Saliba and P. W. Sunderman (eds.), Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2002. 

R. Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Sa’d to Who’s Who, Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press LLC, 2018. 

B. Shaaban, Voices Revealed: Arab Women Novelists, 1898-2000, Boulder CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009. 

E. Shafak, Pinhan, Istanbul, 1997. 

E. Shafak, Bit Palas, İstanbul, Metis Yayınları, 2004. 

E. Shafak, Three Daughters of Eve, London, Viking, 2016. 

E. Shafak, On Dakika Otuz Sekiz Saniye, Istanbul, Doğan Kitap, 2019. 

C. I. Sobritchea, Gender, Culture & Society: Selected Readings in Women’s Studies in the Philippines, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2004. 

St. Anne’s College University of Oxford, Congratulations to St Anne’s Honorary Fellow, Elif Shafak, on her election as President of the Royal Society of Literature, https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/congratulations-to-st-annes-honorary-fellow-elif-shafak-on-her-election-as-president-of-the-royal-society-of-literature/ (Accessed 12/03/26). 

P. Yi, Women in Korean History, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2008. 

A Feast of Books from Across the NGL

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At this time of year, people across the UK are getting ready to enjoy a range of festive treats, so we at the NGL thought, what better occasion to also celebrate the cuisine belonging to the areas of the world covered in our collections. Within this delectable selection is included not only a range of cookbooks – from The Korean Kitchen to three medieval Arabic cookbooks, translated by Nawal Nasrallah (whose other fascinating, food-related books can be found on SOLO) – but also books that explore the cultural significance of food to various cultures.

The book display for this blog post. Books are laid out on a blue table. Behind is a blue noticeboard with images of food and drink.

For example, in Earthly Delights: Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, the authors provide essays on a range of topics, from hospitality to the spice trade, while the book Korean Court Banquet discusses all the requirements for a Chŏson imperial feast, including not only dishes but also outfits and musical accompaniments.

The book cover for 'Earthly Delights'. The background is mostly red with a thick dark blue stripe on the left. At the bottom of the image is a depiction of the Last Supper.
The book cover for 'Korean Court Banquet'. The title is in a white rectangle in the centre of the image. Behind it are miniature illustrations of Korean court officials in red, blue and white outfits on a beige background.

If you are interested in the religious significance of food in particular, you can look to Korean Temples & Food, which includes some details of the diets of Korean Buddhist monks and nuns, both historically and in the present day. There are also recipes so that you can try recreating some of these dishes at home, and this book explains how they contain ‘foodstuffs carefully chosen to help the eater reduce the “Three Poisons” of greed, ignorance, and hatred’. This means that they are, among other things, free from animal products as well as garlic, chives, leeks, onions and asafoetida, as it is believed that these vegetables disrupt the mind.

A dark brown wooden table photographed from above, laid with dishes of dishes of Korean temple food, including multiple dishes of fried green vegetables, a dish of cabbage rolls, a dish of potatoes, and a dish of vermicelli noodles. The dishes are arranged three concentric circles from the centre of the image.
Examples of Korean temple food.

Similarly, food and drink to be avoided (most notably alcohol) are a key theme in the fifth sura of the Qu’ran, which is the subject of The Banquet by Michael Cuypers. This is, however, not this sura’s only subject (other topics covered notably include instructions for washing and prohibitions on murder) and, part of Cuypers aim in his book is to find an interpretive framework that demonstrates the harmony between the different subjects addressed, as well as between this sura and the rest of the Qu’ran.

The book cover of 'The Banquet'. The book's details are in an ornate font on a gold background.
An image of the beginning of the fifth sura of the Qu'ran in Arabic.

The Memorial Feast for Kökötöy-khan, an excerpt from the Epic of Manas,provides a literary example of the significance of food – specifically to the Kyrgyz people of Central Asia. Food items are named repeatedly throughout the text, conveying layers of associated meaning, from abundance to poverty to hospitality. Key among them is kumis or airag, an ancient fermented beverage, traditionally made from mare’s milk, which is still made and consumed by peoples across the region today.

A small glass filled with kumis with the bottle it came from behind. They are both standing on a white tablecloth.
A glass of kumis being held by a hand. In the background can be seen a blue vat and the lower half of a sitting man also holding a glass of kumis.

Finally, to finish with something sweet, also included in the display is Taleen Voskuni’s culinary love story Lavash at First Sight in which two Armenian-American women bond over Armenian cuisine. You might remember this tale of belonging, identity, and finding oneself, from the Queer Armenian Library display earlier this year. The blog post accompanying that display can still be found here, and the books can also still be found on our shelves.

The book cover for 'Lavash at First Sight'. The book's details are in red and purple text on a bright green background. Underneat is an illustration of two women touching hands over a table of food.

It’s not possible to talk about all the books in the display here, nor indeed, all the many fantastic books about food around the world contained in the Bodleian Libraries, but we hope that you’ve enjoyed this look at the NGL’s culinary collections, and maybe even found some inspiration. If you’d like to share any gastronomical discoveries from these books, we’d love to see photos and comments – but, unfortunately, food and drink still aren’t allowed in the NGL, so you’ll just have to eat them all yourself at home while we’re very jealous!

Bibliography

Barbu, V. and Jianu, A. (eds.), Earthly Delights: Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, c. 1500-1900, Leiden, Brill, 2018.

Chung, T. and Samuels D., The Korean Table: From Barbecue to Bibimbap: 100 Easy-to-Prepare Recipes, North Clarendon VT., Tuttle Pub., 2008.

Cooperson, M., Perry, C., and Toorawa, S. M. (eds.), Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook, New York, New York University Press, 2017.

Cuypers, M., The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qurʼan, Miami, Convivium, 2009.

Dmitriev, K., Hauser, J., and Urfahʹlī, B. (eds.), Insatiable Appetite: Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond, Leiden, Brill, 2020.

Elias, L. S., Salloum, H, and Salloum, M., Scheherazade’s Feasts: Foods of the Medieval Arab World, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Gelder, G. J. H. V., Of Dishes and Discourse: Classical Arabic Literary Representations of Food, Richmond, Curzon, 2000.

Han, K., Pak, K., and Yŏnse, T., An Analysis of Food Consumption in the Republic of Korea, 1964-67: With Projected Trends, 1968-71, Seoul, Yonsei University, 1969.

Han’guk Kukche Kyoryu Chaedan, Traditional Food: A Taste of Korean Life, Seoul, Seoul Selection, 2010.

Hansik Chaedan, The Korean Kitchen: 75 Healthy, Delicious and Easy Recipes, Hollym International Corp., Elizabeth NJ, 2014.

Hatto, A. T., The Memorial Feast for Kökötöy-khan (Kökötöydün ašı): A Kirghiz Epic Poem, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977.

Jegal, Y. S., and Lee, H. J., Let’s Try Korean Cooking: The Simple and Easy Way, Seoul, Hanchic, 2010.

Kim, Chong-su, Korean Court Banquet, Kyŏnggi-do P’aju-si, Kŭl Hangari, 2013.

Kim, S., Kimchi: Traditional Korean Food, Seoul, Ehwa Womans University Press, 2010.

Lee, J., Korean Temples & Food, Seoul, YeinArt Co., 2002.

Nasrallah, N., Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table: A Fourteenth-century Egyptian Cookbook, Leiden, Brill, 2018.

Nasrallah, N., Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib, Leiden, Brill, 2021.

Nasrallah, N., Smorgasbords of Andalusi and Maghribi Dishes and Their Salutary Benefits: English Translation of the Thirteenth-century Cookbook Anwa’ al-saydala fi alwan al-atima With Introduction and Glossary, Leiden, Brill, 2025.

Prakash, O., Food and Drinks in Ancient India, From Earliest Times to c. 1200 A.D., Delhi, Munshi Ram Manohar Lal, 1961.

Voskuni, T. Lavash at First Sight, London, Pan Books, 2024.

Black History Month 2025 @ the Nizami Ganjavi Library: Book Recommendation for Born Palestinian Born Black

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This Black History Month, I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the book Born Palestinian Born Black – a powerful poetry volume from Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad in the NGL’s collection.

Book cover for Born Palestinian Born Black.

Hammad’s poetry is deeply inspired by and speaks up for the Black Brooklyn communities within which she grew up. For example, as Kenza Oumlil states in his essay “Talking Back”: The poetry of Suheir Hammad, Hammad ‘[inscribes] Brooklyn and hip-hop language on the page in an effort to revalue its aesthetic merit as a form of orality’.[1]

Hammad also writes in the introductions to Born Palestinian Born Black explicitly of the inspiration she owes to African American poet and activist June Jordan – how, ‘The last stanza in June Jordan’s “Moving Toward Home” changed her life’[2]. One of her descriptions of her own writing process is also as ‘a new embroidery, stitched in june jordan’s dark’[3]. As Sirène Harb argues in her essay, Naming Oppressions, Representing Empowerment: June Jordan’s and Suheir Hammad’s Poetic Projects, ‘these resonances and echoes [between the two poets] originate from a shared commitment to coalition-building, solidarity, and the fight against various oppressions and injustices, which reflects the spirit and analytical project of women of color feminism.’[4]

Black and white portrait photograph of June Jordan

This focus on coalition-building is apparent through Hammad’s poetry in different ways – including not only the communities she writes about, but also community-building between speaker and audience. And nowhere in the collection is this made more explicit than in we spent the fourth of July in bed, as Hammad declares ‘my sincere love         for real / is for my peeps         my family        humanity’.[5]

It is also in this poem that Hammad rhetorically weaves together a community of victims of US violence, in Iraq, Malaysia, the Philippines, Puerto Rica, Yemen, Japan, and Palestine. This is a device that she uses throughout the book, as again and again, she connects sites of injustice. She also finds kinship in marginalisation with her African American neighbours, as in open poem to those who rather we not read… or breathe, she constructs a ‘we’ that connects ‘taino and arawak bodies’, ‘children of children exiled from homelands’, ‘descendents of immigrants’, and ‘survivors of the middle passage’ – all linked in opposition to fascism and imperialism.[6]However, Hammad does not draw one-to-one comparisons between African American and Palestinian experiences, instead presenting each side-by side, connecting them often to illustrate how the trials faced in both are the product of many of the same structural forces.

She also makes clear that these kinships are not only born of suffering. For example, manifest destiny details how Hammad and three of her friends defied the expectations of society and family to forge their own paths and find one another, ‘creating a family’.[7]

A frustrated attempt to establish this sort of connection is furthermore present in fly away. This poem tells of a ‘young brother man’ who decides to escape ‘bein high / and forced / into the back of a police car’ by joining the US Air Force, as Hammad confronts him with the ways that that organisation has inflicted trauma on ‘saigon beirut   greneda’ and asking ‘what if you have to kill people’. He in turn argues that ‘he’s gotta support his moms / give up donations / for the next funeral’ and that he cannot consider these issues ‘cause he’s dealin with / a different kinda fear’. In doing so, she makes a powerful argument about how oppressive systems force the marginalised into competition with one another and for the importance of ‘revolution and peace’ and solidarity as a corrective.[8]

Indeed, I hope that this message of solidarity, enhanced rather than diminished by the acknowledgment of intense suffering worldwide, and this homage to African American communities is one that we can all take from Suheir Hammad’s work this October. I could never do full justice to all of the textures of this poetry collection, so, if anything at all that I have said here has interested you, I can only recommend that you have a look for yourself.

Suheir Hammad reading at PalFest 2010

Bibliography

K. Andrews, K. Crenshaw, and A. Wilson, Blackness at the Intersection, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.

S. Hammad, Born Palestinian Born Black, Brooklyn NY, UpSet Press Inc., 2010.

S. Harb, ‘Naming Oppressions, Representing Empowerment: June Jordan’s and Suheir Hammad’s Poetic Projects’, Feminist Formations, vol. 26, no. 3, 2014, pp.71-99.

J. Jordan, Moving Towards Home: Political Essays, London, Virago, 1989.

J. Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan, Port Townsend, 2007.

D. Moore, ‘“Breaking language”: Performance and community in Suheir Hammad’s poetry’. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 56, no. 1, 2020, pp.110-125.

K. Oumlil, ‘“Talking Back”: The poetry of Suheir Hammad’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 13, no. 5, pp.850-859.

[1] K. Oumlil, ‘“Talking Back”: The poetry of Suheir Hammad’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 13, no. 5, p.855

[2] S. Hammad, Born Palestinian Born Black, Brooklyn NY, UpSet Press Inc., 2010, p.12: The stanza itself is also quoted on that page:

 I was born a Black woman

and now

I am become a Palestinian

against the relentless laughter of evil

there is less and less living room

and where are my loved ones?

It is time to make our way home

[3] Ibid., p. 9

[4] S. Harb, ‘Naming Oppressions, Representing Empowerment: June Jordan’s and Suheir Hammad’s Poetic Projects’, Feminist Formations, vol. 26, no. 3, 2014, pp.72.

[5] S. Hammad, idem., p.72

[6] Ibid., p.73-75

[7] Ibid., p.72

[8] Ibid., 46-47

Welcome to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies!

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We at the NGL wanted to wish a warm welcome to everyone joining us here for the first time and also to enthusiastically welcome back our returning readers! And what better way to do that than a little introduction to the members of the Faculty for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies through their writing. We hope that this gives you some fun and interesting places to start if you are just getting to know the library, and also that, even if you have been a reader here for years you can still find some hidden gems in this collection.

Image of the book display accompanying this blog post in the issue desk area of the Nizami Ganjavi Library.

The books on the display range from language-learning essentials (like Media Persian by Dominic Brookshaw) and reading list texts (like Key Terms of the Qur’an by Nicolai Sinai) to explorations of topics from angles you might not expect. They also cover the full range of geographic areas and time periods represented by the NGL’s collections, including Korea (Jeju Language and Tales from the Edge of the Korean Peninsula by Jieun Kiaer), Iran (Early Islamic Iran edited by Edmund Herzig), Turkey (Uncoupling Language and Religion: An Exploration into the Margins of Turkish Literature by Laurent Mignon), India (Negotiating Mughal Law by Nandini Chatterjee), and more!

Indeed, one of the aspects of researching for this display and blog post that I have enjoyed the most has been seeing the repeated emphasis on connections between places, people, and texts. For example, in The History of English Loanwords in Korean, Jieun Kiaer not only examines the changing channels by which English has influenced Korean or the different ways English words become integrated, but also situates those shifts in a wider east Asian context, incorporating Japan and China, and, furthermore, illustrates how these influences are not one way. Similarly, Mohamed-Salah Omri uses the works of Tunisian author, Maḥmūd al-Mas’adī to demonstrate the complex nature of literary influence between European and Arab cultures in Nationalism, Islam and World Literature, and Imre Bangha, in Hungry Tiger discusses the profound but little-explored impact of Rabindranath Tagore’s work and travels on the Hungarian intelligentsia of the early to mid-20th century.

I think that the books featured in the display really highlight one of this faculty and this library’s greatest strengths which is the bringing together of a range of research interests to produce and discover insightful interdisciplinary ideas. I am continually impressed by both how wide-ranging the collections are here, but also how well-connected to one another. I really encourage you to explore as there wasn’t room in the display or this blog post to feature all of the faculty’s great contributions – for example, some of the books not featured are in the bibliography below – and of course there’s even more to discover beyond these works. And that’s to say nothing of the millions of books available to order from off-site storage via SOLO! I hope you enjoy your time at the AMES Faculty and NGL as much as I have and we at the NGL look forward to you visiting us in future!

Bibliography

A. Abdou, Arabic Idioms: A Corpus-Based Study, London, Routledge, 2012.

I. Bangha, Hungry Tiger: Encounters Between Hungarian and Bengali Literary Cultures, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2008.

U. Bläsing, J. Dum-Tragut, and T. M. van Lint, Armenian, Hittite, and Indo-European Studies: A Commemoration Volume for Jos J.S. Weitenberg, Leuven, Peeters, 2019.

D. Brookshaw, Media Persian, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

E. Cakir, Turkish Tutor: Grammar and Vocabulary workbook. Advanced beginner to upper intermediate

N. Chatterjee, Negotiating Mughal Law: A Family of Landlords Across Three Indian Empires Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022.

J. F. Coakley and D. Taylor, Syriac books printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul : with an appendix containing the Syriac books printed at the Chaldean Press, Mosul, Piscataway N.J., Gorgias Press, 2009.

K. Crosby, Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity and Identity, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2014.

E. Herzig, Early Islamic Iran, London, I.B. Taurus, 2012.

R. Ismail, Rethinking Salafism: The Transnational Networks of Salafi ʻUlama in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, New York, Oxford University Press, 2021.

L. Jabb, Oral and Literary Continuities in Modern Tibetan Literature: The Inescapable Nation, Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2015.

J. Kiaer, The History of English Loanwords in Korean, Muenchen, Lincom, 2014.

J. Kiaer, Jeju Language and Tales from the Edge of the Korean Peninsula, Muenchen, Lincom, 2014.

J. Kiaer, The old Korean poetry : grammatical analysis and translation, Muenchen, Lincom, 2014.

J. B. Lewis, Frontier Contact Between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan, London, Routledge, 2011

J. J. Lowe, Modern Linguistics in Ancient India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024.

L. Mignon, Uncoupling Language and Religion: An Exploration into the Margins of Turkish Literature, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2021.

A. Mokashi, Sapiens and Sthitaprajña : a comparative study in Seneca’s stoicism and the Bhagavadgīta, New Delhi, DK Printworld, 2019.

F. Morrissey, Sufism and the Scriptures: Metaphysics and Sacred History in the Thought of ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, London, I.B. Taurus, 2021.

M. S. Omri, Nationalism, Islam and world literature : sites of confluence in the writings of Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī, London, Routledge, 2006.

T. Qutbuddin, al-Muʼayyad al-Shīrāzī and Fatimid daʿwa Poetry: A Case of Commitment in Classical Arabic Literature, Leiden, Brill, 2005.

T. Qutbuddin, Arabic Oration: Art and Function, Leiden, Brill, 2019.

E. L. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

C. Sahner, Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Islamic World, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018.

N. Sinai, The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

N. Sinai, Key Terms of the Qur’an: A Critical Dictionary, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2023.

M. Stausberg and Y. Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to Zoroastrianism, Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.

Celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month at the NGL

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Last month was the UK’s LGBTQ+ History Month, and to celebrate this occasion, we at the Nizami Ganjavi Library created a display to showcase some of the Bodleian Libraries’ LGBTQ+ related materials, from across the Middle East. I hope that seeing this side of the collections was as enlightening for you as it was for me, and thank you for all those who expressed a positive interesWith the NGL’s blog newly up-and-running, I thought I would it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to provide a bit more information!

A collection of books on a table. Some are proppeA collection of Bodleian Libraries' books on LGBTQ+ themes. Behind the books is a board with images from 'There Are No Homosexuals in Iran' on the left and the movie poster for 'Alexandria Again and Forever' on the right. In the centre is a sign with text in the colours of the Progress Pride flag that reads LGBTQ+ History Month at the NGL Behind the Lens.
Last month’s display by the NGL issue desk.

Front cover for the book Islamicate Sexualities

The display included works from and about a wide range of countries are included – Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Armenia – representing a diverse range of perspectives on LGBTQ+ experiences. This was very necessary, because often conversations on LGBTQ+ issues are dominated by Western frameworks – some of which may be inappropriate to the cultures discussed. This is a difficulty that the volume Islamicate Sexualities tackles head-on, questioning how well Western queer identities can apply to subjects of study that are distant not only geographically, but also temporally. The volume’s contributors carefully excavate from documentary evidence how various historic Islamic writers represented normative sexuality as it existed in their time and region, making for a fantastic and subtle analysis. I highly recommend this title!

Front cover for the book Unspeakable Love

Similarly, Brian Whitaker, in representing the LGBTQ+ experience leading to the modern day, carefully writes to avoid simple orientalist narratives about a repressive Middle East and a tolerant West. At the same time, he acknowledges the many obstacles faced by LGBTQ+ individuals in the countries he discusses.

This reality can also be seen in how many of the queer authors included here write from outside of their country of origin, or in European languages, such as Abdellah Taïa who writes in French, and Khaled Alesmael who writes in German. This interplay is present in Siba Al-Harez’s novel The Others, in which the protagonist discovers same-sex attraction for the first time. Al-Harez writes about the difficulty of finding information about sexuality on the internet under Saudi censorship, and the different language that the unnamed main character encounters on domestic sites compared to foreign ones – language of sin versus language of identity – and how she finds both equally confusing.

Front cover for the book Selamlik by Khaled AlesmaelFront cover for the book Another Morocco by Abdellah TaïaFront cover for the book The Others by Siba Al-Harez

Image from There Are No Homosexuals in Iran depictingtwo fat women cover each other's faces in a well-lit white room. Both wear white t-shirts. One wears orange trousers and the other black trousers. One has blonde hair and the other has dark hair.
Image from ‘There Are No Homosexuals in Iran’ by Laurence Rasti

Yet another perspective can be seen in Swiss-Iranian photographer Laurence Rasti’s There Are No Homosexuals in Iran. This title is a reference to a comment made by then Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in 2007. In this beautiful series of photographs, Rasti shows a variety of queer Iranians defiantly and quietly living their daily lives, interspersed with images of Tehran and domestic scenes. Another reason why I chose to include Rasti’s work is because this year, the theme for LGBTQ+ History Month is ‘Behind the Lens’. This theme drew me to written works by queer Middle Eastern filmmakers like Khaled Alesmael, Saleem Haddad, and Abdellah Taïa, but also Hovhannes Tekgyozyan’s ‘movie novella’. This book both evokes the subject of filmmaking in the form of the protagonist, Gagik’s projects, and in its structure and style. To me, this novel is not only queer in having openly gay characters, but also in the way that Tekgyozyan’s use of ‘cuts’ and ‘scenes’ to play with time in this work, conjures the concept of ‘queer time’.

Movie poster for Alexandria Again and Forever with text in both French and English. In the foreground is the actor Amr Abdulgalil in a light suit and shirt, making a swooning gesture.
Movie poster for ‘Alexandria Again and Forever’.

I have also included in this display information about Youssef Chahine and his autobiographical Alexandria quadrilogy. While Chahine was never openly queer, the films in this series are notable for their nuanced depictions of masculine same-sex desire. Whether or not these representations illustrate anything about the creator’s own identity, the theme of ‘openness to the other’ runs through many of Chahine’s films, and his willingness to show queer perspectives fits this trend. In any case, these films are an indispensable part of understanding queer Egyptian cinema. I particularly recommend Alexandria Again and Forever – a genre-bending dramedy that examines themes of obsession, history, and auteur theory, but is also a fun experience.

It has been rewarding for me to look at LGBTQ+ history through a different ‘lens’ at the NGL, and I hope that you find something interesting or enlightening for you in these materials too. But this is nowhere near everything that the Bodleian has to offer on LGBTQ+ themes in the Middle East. For example, the book Queer Turkey: Transnational Poetics of Desire is also available online via SOLO. I can only encourage you to explore further!