The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi A. Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries, the 1960s Arab New Left, addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and nonemancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation.

In face of unprecedented awareness of religious diversity, as well as the dangers of conflict, interreligious dialogue has become vital. Yet, these authors maintain, it is the commitment to think together about religious faith and our inherited traditions that genuinely moves mutual understanding to new levels. Here is such a religious experiment, an interreligious theological quest, framed in the interests of peacemaking. Fadi Daou and Nayla Tabbara, a Maronite priest and a Muslim Sunni, respectively, share one objective: to show what the Christian and Muslim faiths teach with regard to religious "otherness" and to indicate the relationship which may link the believer of another religion to God. It is this honest attempt to find divine hospitality that opens each religion to spiritual solidarity and to the reality, presence, and gift of the other. *** "This is truly an exceptional book. Fadi Daou and Nayla Tabbara have shown that the teaching of theology is not enough, and that . . . it is necessary to promote spiritual communion between believers from different religions and to translate theological questions into terms of daily life." --Jean-Marc Aveline, Institut Catholique de la Mediterranee[Subject: Religious Studies, Muslim Studies, Christian Studies]

Based on over five years of ethnographic fieldwork in Syria, Exemplary Life focuses on the life of a Damascus woman, Myrna Nazzour, who serves as an aspirational figure in her community. Myrna is regarded by her followers as an exemplary figure, a living saint, and the messages, apparitions, stigmata, and oil that have marked Myrna since 1982 have corroborated her status as chosen by God. Exemplary Life probes the power of examples, the modelling of sainthood around Myrna’s figure, and the broader context for Syrian Christians in the changing landscape of the Middle East. The book highlights the social use of examples such as the ones inhabited by Myrna’s devout followers and how they reveal the broader structures of illustration, evidence, and persuasion in social and cultural settings. Andreas Bandak argues that the role of the example should incite us to investigate which trains of thought set local worlds in motion. In doing so, Exemplary Life presents a novel frame for examining how religion comes to matter to people and adds a critical dimension to current anthropological engagements with ethics and morality.

Madam Suzanne is a true journey from humble beginnings, to her role as the mastermind behind the most successful and upscale brothels in Las Vegas, Orange county, and the country. Follow Madam Suzanne behind the scenes, as she reveals the secrets behind the inner workings of OC FUN, an upscale escort agency which operated out of twelve brothels, with a collection of 8,600 VIP clients, and thousands of classy, beautiful, and sexy women. Discover the reasons why ordinary women choose to become high paid escorts, and why men pay an exuberant amount of money to enjoy their intimate relationship, and companionship. Watch Madam Suzanne as she skillfully navigates through the complicated relationships between the escorts, who offer their bodies as a high demand commodity, and the clients who shamelessly use them. After 30 years in the business, Madam Suzanne evaluates the balance between law enforcement need to combat prostitution, and the logistics behind legalization in the U.S. Prepare to be shocked when Madam Suzanne finally reveals her true Identity.

From the overloaded courts with their constantly changing dates and appointments to the need to prove oneself the “right” kind of victim, the asylum system in the United States is an exacting and drawn-out immigration process that itself results in suffering. When anthropologist Rhoda Kanaaneh became a volunteer interpreter for Arab asylum seekers, she learned how applicants were pushed to craft specific narratives to satisfy the system’s requirements. Kanaaneh tells the stories of four Arab asylum seekers who sought protection in the United States on the basis of their gender or sexuality: Saud, who relived painful memories of her circumcision and police harassment in Sudan and then learned to number and sequence these recollections; Fatima, who visited doctors and therapists in order to document years of spousal abuse without over-emphasizing her resulting mental illness; Fadi, who highlighted the homophobic motivations that provoked his arrest and torture in Jordan, all the while sidelining connected issues of class and racism; and Marwa, who showcased her private hardships as a lesbian in a Shiite family in Lebanon and downplayed her environmental activism. The Right Kind of Suffering is a compelling portrait of Arab asylum seekers whose success stories stand in contrast with those whom the system failed.

We all long for peace within ourselves, families, communities, countries, and throughout the world. We wonder what we can do about the multitude of con?icts currently wreaking havoc across the globe and the continuous reports of violence in communities as well as within families. Most of the time, we contemplate solutions beyond our reach, and overlook a powerful tool that is at our disposal: forgiveness. As a genocide survivor, I know something about it. As the genocide unfolded in Rwanda in 1994, I was devastated by what I believed to be the inevitable deaths of my loved ones. The news that my parents and my seven siblings had indeed been killed was simply unbearable. Anger and bitterness became my daily companions. Likewise, I continued to wonder how the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda could possibly reconcile after one of the most horrendous genocides of the 20th century. It was not until I came to understand the notion of forgiveness that I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Common wisdom suggests that forgiveness comes after a perpetrator makes a genuine apology. This wisdom informs us that in the aftermath of a wrongdoing, the offender must acknowledge the wrong he or she has done, express remorse, express an apology, commit to never repeating said harm, and make reparations to theextentpossible.Onlythencanthevictimforgiveandagreetoneverseekrevenge.

From Beirut, and from the south of Lebanon, three of the characters in the novel find themselves in Montreal, Canada, and through a set of unpredictable circumstances find themselves related to each other, where their lives get tangled and correlate, converge and diverge on different levels.Fadi is a young, handsome journalism student at McGill University, and chance brings him face to face with a locally born architect, Andre, who ends up challenging all his reservations thus far and irreversibly changes his life, challenging his resolve and inviting him ever so kindly and with patience and love, out of his self imposed prison, the culture he left behind, his upbringing and the limitations it imposes on him. What happens to them would come to alter their lives in ways thus far unimagined, and under no consideration into easy street. Some very tough decisions are ahead.Marwan is an ex-militiaman who now drives a taxi in the streets of Montreal, having escaped the ranks under unenviable and totally near-disastrous set of events that are otherwise potentially detrimental to his well-being and disruptive of his life. He is a newly wed man expecting a baby with his loving wife, but then things are not as simple as 1,2,3 in life, and he finds himself by chance, facing certain events that are to shake him to the foundations of his being, challenge his emotions, and threaten his loving marriage, with the baby on the way. His daydreaming, flashes of memory from the past, and the current predicament he finds himself in are at times a little too much to take for the smiling and very kind taxi driver, but the only way to face his future is not through the easy way out.Somehow related through destiny to the taxi driver, Mohammed is also in Montreal recently, though the two are not aware of this fact. A chance taxi fare pick-up brings them together after many years, where neither one was aware of the other's whereabouts, or whether one or the other was still alive. Mohammed a new refugee in Canada, is looking for work, and working on putting his shattered life together, and a fresh new start in a new city. For him too life has a few surprises, as he goes on about with his new life, and an eventual business trip to Las Vegas ends up in turbulence and disruption of life to no total fault of his own, and yet the involvement is way too much to bear, and tears and black destiny are around the corner.Andre meanwhile imposes silence upon himself, for a while at least, after he leaves the hospital after a prolonged stay, but only until his brother and his family find out by chance, it was not due to the loss of speech he was not talking, which opens the door wide to questions, interpretations and eventual confessions and then unexpected counter-confessions of his brother, who had been hiding a big secret most of his life. It all comes to the fore, and is to effect other interrelations between the different characters by association or by mere careless mistakes that are committed, coincidence, doubt, jealousy, prying and pursuit, charged human emotions, with what turns out to dire results for some and worse for others.Life is never easy, but still interesting, and worth every moment we live through. Not all is bad though. To some readers some of the events are a total surprise and may be had to believe, but are facts of life all the same. When two souls meet, things happen.