• Culture & Social Affairs

Three artists whose names became entwined with places

Vincent van Gogh painted sunflowers and starry nights from Arles, Paul Gauguin painted landscapes and Polynesian women from Tahiti, while in Tangier, Henri Matisse enhanced his palette.

Ismail Ghazaly
A visitor takes a picture of the painting La Chambre de Van Gogh a Arles, 1888 (Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles) at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France. Stephane Mahe/Reuters

Capturing the Human Story

[caption id="attachment_55247510" align="alignnone" width="650"] Steve McCurryStruggling camels silhouetted against the oil-fire, Al-Ahmadi oil field, Kuwait, 1991© Steve McCurry Courtesy of the…

Amy Assad

The Tunisia that Time Forgot

While the political elite in Tunis are wrangling over the future of the country, there are parts of Tunisia that time has simply forgotten. The current political impasse—and the fact that the state…

Tam Hussein

Poetry Leads the Turkish Republic

[caption id="attachment_55247131" align="alignnone" width="620"] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shows a book from the Turkish Anthropology Institutes during an address to the parliament…

Nicholas Birch

This Dance of Freedom

[caption id="attachment_55246885" align="alignnone" width="614"] Salah El Brogy performing Hurriyeh to calligraphy by Soraya Syed (both artists/ Nour Festival)[/caption] You would not expect a…

Tam Hussein

Art and Punishment

[caption id="attachment_55246819" align="alignnone" width="620"] Soudabeh ArdavanPrison Sketches©Soudabeh Ardavan[/caption] The old "suffering artist" cliché takes on a new meaning when it comes to…

Jesse Lawrence

Learning from Past Mistakes

[inset_left]The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future Edited by Jason Pack Palgrave Macmillan, 2013[/inset_left]Jason Pack has assembled articles by both new and well…

Noel Brehony

The Arabic Slur

[caption id="attachment_55246566" align="alignnone" width="620"] Lebanese Sheikh Hussein Zayat, a calligrapher copies out pages of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, onto sheets of paper. (MAHMOUD…

Malik al-Abdeh

The Kemalists' Veil of Tolerance

[caption id="attachment_55246534" align="alignnone" width="594"] Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party MP Nurcan Dalbudak (L) is greeted wearing a headscarf as she attends a general assembly…

Nicholas Birch

Razeq and the Caliph

[caption id="attachment_55246392" align="alignnone" width="620"] Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the 99th caliph and the last sultan to exert effective control over the Ottoman Empire.[/caption] For 1,300…

Abdullah Al-Rashid
OPINIONS

Trump takes aim at ‘weak and decaying’ Europe over Ukraine

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Culture takes over from the law after Muslim Brotherhood ban

Abdullah Al-Judaya
Abdullah Al-Judaya

Despite the whispers, Maher al-Assad is not ‘coming back’ to Syria

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A once-forgotten Syria now teems with possibility

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