Book picks similar to
Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World by Wendy Buonaventura
dance
non-fiction
history
bellydance
Known and Strange Things: Essays
Teju Cole - 2016
The collection will include pre-published essays that have gone viral, like “The White Industrial Savior Complex,” first published in The Atlantic.
Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s
Raphael Cormack - 2021
During the 1920s and ’30s, a vibrant music, theater, film, and cabaret scene flourished, defining what it meant to be a “modern” Egyptian. Women came to dominate the Egyptian entertainment industry—as stars of the stage and screen but also as impresarias, entrepreneurs, owners, and promoters of a new and strikingly modern entertainment industry.Raphael Cormack unveils the rich histories of independent, enterprising women like vaudeville star Rose al-Youssef (who launched one of Cairo’s most important newspapers); nightclub singer Mounira al-Mahdiyya (the first woman to lead an Egyptian theater company) and her great rival, Oum Kalthoum (still venerated for her soulful lyrics); and other fabulous female stars of the interwar period, a time marked by excess and unheard-of freedom of expression. Buffeted by crosswinds of colonialism and nationalism, conservatism and liberalism, “religious” and “secular” values, patriarchy and feminism, this new generation of celebrities offered a new vision for women in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.
Tête à Tête
Henri Cartier-Bresson - 1998
Tete a Tete is a remarkable arrangement of his most memorable portraits, including Pablo Picasso, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Lucien Freud, William Faulkner, Robert Kennedy, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr., Coco Chanel, and the Dalai Lama. Beyond these famous names there are also anonymous portraits, chosen for their striking and unusual features, and a selection of pencil drawings, including a self-portrait. Cartier-Bresson supervised the design of the book and the juxtaposition of all the photographs. The result is a distinguished collection of his work, diverse in its range of extraordinary and ordinary personalities from the 1930s to the 1990s. Tete a Tete reveals Cartier-Bresson as a photographer who is as skillful in recording the subtleties of the individual portrait as he is renowned for his masterful ability to capture the decisive moment.
What Is Art?
Leo Tolstoy - 1898
These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered & rejected the idea that art reveals & reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire & even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned & iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good, for the improvement of humankind.
The Shock of the New
Robert Hughes - 1980
More than 250 color photos.
Fosse
Sam Wasson - 2013
The only person ever to win Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year, Fosse revolutionized nearly every facet of American entertainment, forever marking Broadway and Hollywood with his iconic style — hat tilted, fingers splayed — that would influence generations of performing artists. Yet in spite of Fosse’s innumerable achievements, no accomplishment ever seemed to satisfy him, and offstage his life was shadowed in turmoil and anxiety.Now, bestselling author Sam Wasson unveils the man behind the swaggering sex appeal, tracing Fosse’s untold reinventions of himself over a career that would spawn The Pajama Game, Cabaret, Pippin, All That Jazz, and Chicago, one of the longest-running Broadway musicals ever. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material and hundreds of sources — friends, enemies, lovers, and collaborators, many of whom have never spoken publicly about Fosse before — Wasson illuminates not only Fosse’s prodigious professional life, but also his close and conflicted relationships with everyone from Liza Minnelli to Ann Reinking to Jessica Lange and Dustin Hoffman. Wasson also uncovers the deep wounds that propelled Fosse’s insatiable appetites — for spotlights, women, and life itself. In this sweeping, richly detailed account, Wasson’s stylish, effervescent prose proves the ideal vehicle for revealing Bob Fosse as he truly was — after hours, close up, and in vibrant color.
The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera
Joseph Volpe - 2006
This book is the story of Volpe's years leading up to those at the Met, from his first job as a stagehand at the Morosco Theater to the odd jobs he picked up moonlighting: setting up a searchlight or laying down a red carpet for a movie premiere, changing titles on the marquees at the Astor, Victor, and Paramount theaters. It is his Met years--from apprentice carpenter to general manager--that give us a story about New York and the business of culture. Volpe looks at the Met today, an institution full of vast egos and complicated politics, as well as its glittering past--the old Met at Thirty-ninth and Broadway, and the political and artistic intrigues that exploded around its move to Lincoln Center. With stunning candor, he writes about the general managers he worked under, including Rudolf Bing and Anthony Bliss; his own embattled rise to the top; the maneuverings of the blue-chip board; his bad-cop, good-cop collaboration with the conductor James Levine; and his masterful approach to making a family of such highly charged artist-stars as Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Teresa Stratas, and Renee Fleming, and such visionary directors as Franco Zeffirelli, Robert Wilson, and Julie Taymor.
Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan
Sally Armstrong - 2002
In Veiled Threat, Sally Armstrong introduces several of these women—including the deputy prime minister of Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar—who describe the living hell they experienced as well as the quiet rebellion—clandestine schools for girls and health clinics for women—that took place in an effort to subvert the Taliban's hateful edicts.One of the first Western journalists to visit Afghanistan, Armstrong gives us an insider's view of the deplorable situation. She also provides a broader perspective, leading us through the history of Afghanistan, including the ebb and flow of women's rights. She examines what the Koran actually says about women. She points a finger at the international community for accepting women's oppression in the name of culture, and she accuses the Taliban and other fundamentalist leaders of distorting Islam for political opportunism. While there have been other books about the women in Afghanistan, VEILED THREAT holds a unique position. There have been two autobiographies: ZOYA'S STORY and MY FORBIDDEN FACE; a photo book, UNVEILED; and a book about RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) called VEILED COURAGE. VEILD THREAT is much broader in its approach.
Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits
Art Spiegelman - 2001
Plastic Man is more than just a putty face--with his bad-boy past, he literally embodies the comic book form: the exuberant energy, flexibility, boyishness, and subtle hints of sexuality. And as cartoonists "become" each character they create, it can be said that Jack Cole himself resembles Plastic Man. Cole revealed the true magnitude and intensity of his imagination and inner thoughts as Plastic Man slithered from panel to panel--shifting forms and dashing from male to female, or freely morphing from a stiff upright figure to a being as soft as a Dali clock. With a compelling history, a V-necked red rubber leotard, a black-and-yellow striped belt, and very cool tinted goggles, Plastic Man is truly a cult classic, and this art-packed book will delight any fan.
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai - 2012
When I almost died it was just after midday.When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
Ian Shaw - 2000
Ranging from 700,000 BC to 311 AD, this volume portrays the emergence and development of Egypt from its prehistoric roots to its conquest by the Roman Empire. The contributors--all leading scholars working at the cutting edge of Egyptology--incorporate the latest findings in archaeological research as they chart the principal political events of Egyptian history, from the rise of the Pharaohs and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, to the ascension of the Ptolemies and the coming of Roman legions. The book also includes the first detailed examinations of three periods which were previously regarded as dark ages. Against the backdrop of the birth and death of ruling dynasties, the writers also examine cultural and social patterns, including stylistic developments in art and literature, monumental architecture, funerary beliefs, and much more. The contributors illuminate the underlying patterns of social and political change and describe the changing face of ancient Egypt, from the biographical details of individuals to the social and economic factors that shaped the lives of the people as a whole. The only up-to-date, single-volume history of ancient Egypt available in English, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is a must read for everyone interested in one of the great civilizations of antiquity.
Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
Jasbir K. Puar - 2007
Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, through developments including the legal recognition inherent in the overturning of anti-sodomy laws and the proliferation of more mainstream representation. These incorporations have shifted many queers from their construction as figures of death (via the AIDS epidemic) to subjects tied to ideas of life and productivity (gay marriage and reproductive kinship). Puar contends, however, that this tenuous inclusion of some queer subjects depends on the production of populations of Orientalized terrorist bodies. Heteronormative ideologies that the U.S. nation-state has long relied on are now accompanied by homonormative ideologies that replicate narrow racial, class, gender, and national ideals. These “homonationalisms” are deployed to distinguish upright “properly hetero,” and now “properly homo,” U.S. patriots from perversely sexualized and racialized terrorist look-a-likes—especially Sikhs, Muslims, and Arabs—who are cordoned off for detention and deportation. Puar combines transnational feminist and queer theory, Foucauldian biopolitics, Deleuzian philosophy, and technoscience criticism, and draws from an extraordinary range of sources, including governmental texts, legal decisions, films, television, ethnographic data, queer media, and activist organizing materials and manifestos. Looking at various cultural events and phenomena, she highlights troublesome links between terrorism and sexuality: in feminist and queer responses to the Abu Ghraib photographs, in the triumphal responses to the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision repealing anti-sodomy laws, in the measures Sikh Americans and South Asian diasporic queers take to avoid being profiled as terrorists, and in what Puar argues is a growing Islamophobia within global queer organizing.
50 Photographers You Should Know
Peter Stepan - 2008
From Félix Nadar to Nan Goldin, each of the photographers featured here represents an important aspect of photography's evolution. The artists are presented in double-page spreads that include reproductions of their most important works, concise biographies, informative sidebars, and a timeline that extends throughout the volume. The result is a fascinating overview of the way photographers continue to push the limits of their genre, offering their audiences new ways of seeing and understanding our world.
Figuring
Maria Popova - 2019
Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists--mostly women, mostly queer--whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson.Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman--and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry, and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement.
10,000 Years of Art
Phaidon Press - 2009
Five hundred great works of art from all periods and regions in the world have been carefully selected and are arranged in chronological order, breaking through the usual geographical and cultural boundaries of art history to celebrate the vast range of human artistry.