History and the Harem

African Dance edited by Kariamu Welsh Asante. "African Dance is a compilation of essays by distinguished writers, critics, and artists in the field of Dance and African American Studies who address several areas and disciplines of African dance both on the continent and in the diaspora. Sir Rex Nettleford, the distinguished Jamaican choreographer, professor and writer, stresses in the foreword that the continuity between all dances that derive from Africa and the significance of this book."

Canadian funds: African Dance

Ancient Egyptian Dances by Irena Lexova. Excellent resource on the history, mystery and origins of belly dance. Has sections on purely movemental dance, gymnastic dance, imitative dance, dramatic dance, lyrical dance, funeral dance, religious dance, accompaniments of the dance, dance with musical instruments, movements of the legs, arms, and trunk, costumes of the ancient Egyptian women and men dancers, a note on the historical development of the ancient Egyptian art of dancing, and a note on the Egyptian dances, as performed by modern women dancers.

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The Colonial Harem by Malek Alloula. "I strongly recommend "the colonial harem" for everyone interested in Orientalism, colonial and postcolonial literature, and the subaltern studies. In "the colonial harem," Malek Alloula reverses the camera and literally enables the readers to observe the observer and his "colonial gaze." As a final note, Barbara Harlow's introduction itself is worth reading alone for a better grasp of the complex issues that underlie the representation of the other. - Definitely worth buying!"

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Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity 1884-1914 by Taj Al-Saltanah and Abbas Amanat. "The life of Taj al-Saltana, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary flux. It is as though she had chosen this moment to recall her personal history--a tale filled with "wonder and anguish"--in order to record a cultural and political leap, symbolic of her time, from the indulgent, sheltered, and often petty world of her father's harem to the puzzling and exposed, yet emotionally and intellectually challenging world of a new Iran."

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The Dances of Africa by Michel Huet and Claude Savary. "From 1945 to 1985, French photographer Michel Huet traveled through Africa recording the beautiful, age-old dance rituals and ceremonies of 50 African tribes. Now, in this visually stunning work, Huet's unique images are blended with ethnographer Claude Savary's sensitive text to produce a stunning testimonial to these rapidly vanishing cultural traditions."

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Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution by Dona Munker and Sattareh Farman Farmaian. "Sattareh Farman Farmaian, born in the early 1920s, grows up in her father's compound, one of many children by one of his many wives. Her father is an ardent believer in education and supports Sattareh's determination to became the first female in her family to receive an advanced degree. In time, she realizes her dream of opening the Teheran School of Social Work and teaches health and hygiene to hundreds of students over the years."

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Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi. "In 1940, harems still abounded in Fez, Morocco. They weren't the opulent, bejeweled harems of Scherezade, but the domestic sprawl of extended families encamped around a walled courtyard that marked the edges of women's lives. Though born into this tightly sheltered world, Fatimi Mernissi is constantly urged by her rebellious mother to spring beyond it. Worried that Mernissi is too shy and quiet, her mother tells her, 'You must learn to scream and protest, just the way you learned to walk and talk.'"

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Earth Dancing, Mother Nature's Oldest Rite by Daniela Gioseffi. "This is a very informative book to anyone interested in the ancient art of belly dancing. Contains a great chronology of the history of the dance."

The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alteritist Discourse by Irvin Cemil Schick. "Gender and sexuality have long held an important place in western attitudes towards the people and regions of the world -- from the titillating accounts of harem life in the Middle East to the terrifying captivity narratives of North America. The Erotic Margin is a first attempt to pull together this large, disparate, and often contradictory literature, and view it as a corpus."

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Harem: The World Behind the Veil by Alev Lytle Croutier. "Drawing on a host of intimate first-hand accounts and memoirs, Harem explores life in the world's harems, from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century, focusing on the fabled and ever-mysterious Seraglio of Topkapi Palace as a paradigm for all. 125 illustrations, 50 in full color."

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The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Studies in Middle Eastern History) by Leslie P. Peirce. "This book might be a disappointment to someone looking for gossip about life in the harem as envisioned by writers of fiction. But for anyone really interested in understanding the role of women and the domestic household in the royal court of a great Muslim Empire, this is the real thing, brilliantly researched and thoughtfully presented."

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Oscar Wilde's Last Stand : Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century by Philip Hoare. "Even though Oscar Wilde--playwright, wit, critic, and convicted sodomite--died exiled and disgraced in 1900, his memory and influence remain central to British culture. In 1918 the specter of Wilde manifested itself in what social historian Philip Hoare calls "the trial of the century." This shocking libel case was brought by American actress Maud Allan, who had just appeared in a production of Wilde's Salome, against Noel Pemberton Billing, an arch-conservative M.P., who accused her of being a member of "the cult of the clitoris": his catch phase for a sexual and social degeneracy that he saw as destroying England."

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Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance - Awakening Spirituality Through Movement and Ritual by Iris J. Stewart. "The first book to explore women's spiritual expression--women's * ways--through a study of dance * Investigates how dance came to be excluded from worship, and reveals * how dance is once again being brought into spiritual practices."

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Stripping in Time: A History of Erotic Dancing by Lucinda Jarrett. "The story begins in the 1960's in the music halls of Paris and London, where the arts of titillation and tease were perfected. The end of the First World World War was followed by an explosion of nudity in the theatres of Europe, as women and pleasure were celebrated in the cabarets of Berlin and the extravagant revues of France. These inspired the artistic nudes of Ziegfeld, which in turn were centered by the theatre of sex that sprang up in the underworld of New York's Bowery, were the term 'strip tease' was first coined. The open sexuality of dancer Gypsy Rose Lee took her to Hollywood, and American strip tease artists began to dominate gossip columns and see their names in lights on Broadway. The Second World War brought the craft of sexual tease back to the nightclubs of Europe, and in the fifties and sixties London's Shoho gave birth to a sex industry that is now booming in Eastern Europe. The story ends in Cairo, where the belly dance is now threatened by the rising moral tide of Islamic fundamentalism. Stripping in Time looks at the impact of censorship on the dancers and their craft, Memoirs, diaries and eye witness account evoke the lives of these women who dance on the edges of civilized society."

Veils and Daggers by Linda Steet. "National Geographic magazine has long been a staple of home, school, and public libraries across the country. In Veils and Daggers, Linda Steet provides a critically insightful and alternative interpretation of National Geographic by examining one hundred years of its Arab world coverage. Steet's analysis of the discourses of Orientalism, patriarchy, and primitivism in the magazine's representation of the Arab world uncovers the ideological perspectives that have guided National Geographic throughout its history. Drawing on cultural, feminist, and postcolonial criticism, Steet generates alternative readings that challenge the magazine's claims to objectivity and to mirroring the world. In this fascinating journey, it becomes clear that neither textual nor visual constructions of Arab women and men, of Islam, and of Arab culture in the magazine can be regarded as natural or self-evident, and it is artfully demonstrated that the act of representing others is never innocent. Steet turns National Geographic inside out showing that decade after decade, while Arabs were locked into predictable Orientalist interpretations, National Geographic was itself veiled and daggered. Veils and Daggers repositions and redefines National Geographic as an educational journal. Steet's work is an important and groundbreaking contribution in the areas of social foundations of education, cultural studies, feminist studies, social studies, and ethnic studies. Once encountered, readers of National Geographic will never regard it in the same manner again."

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