使用Player FM应用程序离线!
Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif
Manage episode 303570219 series 2901666
This first novel in Abdelrahman Munif’s masterful quintet depicts sweeping social and economic transformations in the Arabian peninsula during the development of oil reserves for global export. Written in Paris and first published in Arabic in 1984, Cities of Salt follows members of a Bedouin village somewhere near the Persian Gulf as local elites invite American companies to prospect for oil. Their lives and relationships undergo continuous ruptures as they must adapt to the new world being built around them.
We talk about Munif’s political origins in the Baath party, the Lovecraftian horrors of oil, the inseparability of culture and political economy, the sorrow and pain of losing collective identity, and the process of forming new social consciousness in a site of capitalist extraction.
Notes and References:
Sabry Hafez: ‘An Arabian Master,'
New Left Review 37
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii37/articles/sabry-hafez-an-arabian-master
Writing a Tool for Change: Abd al-Rahman Munif Remembered
MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, Spring 2007
https://dome.mit.edu/handle/1721.3/177979
Aramco: Era of Discovery (1984) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHh6wY2ua08
Odd orientalist propaganda documentary describing the earliest days of oil prospecting and development that led the formation of the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO)
https://twitter.com/unseenbookclub
Music by ex-official: https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/
Art by Eli Liebman: https://elimack.weebly.com/
35集单集
Manage episode 303570219 series 2901666
This first novel in Abdelrahman Munif’s masterful quintet depicts sweeping social and economic transformations in the Arabian peninsula during the development of oil reserves for global export. Written in Paris and first published in Arabic in 1984, Cities of Salt follows members of a Bedouin village somewhere near the Persian Gulf as local elites invite American companies to prospect for oil. Their lives and relationships undergo continuous ruptures as they must adapt to the new world being built around them.
We talk about Munif’s political origins in the Baath party, the Lovecraftian horrors of oil, the inseparability of culture and political economy, the sorrow and pain of losing collective identity, and the process of forming new social consciousness in a site of capitalist extraction.
Notes and References:
Sabry Hafez: ‘An Arabian Master,'
New Left Review 37
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii37/articles/sabry-hafez-an-arabian-master
Writing a Tool for Change: Abd al-Rahman Munif Remembered
MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, Spring 2007
https://dome.mit.edu/handle/1721.3/177979
Aramco: Era of Discovery (1984) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHh6wY2ua08
Odd orientalist propaganda documentary describing the earliest days of oil prospecting and development that led the formation of the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO)
https://twitter.com/unseenbookclub
Music by ex-official: https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/
Art by Eli Liebman: https://elimack.weebly.com/
35集单集
所有剧集
×欢迎使用Player FM
Player FM正在网上搜索高质量的播客,以便您现在享受。它是最好的播客应用程序,适用于安卓、iPhone和网络。注册以跨设备同步订阅。