MER Article Orientalizing America: Beginnings and Middle Passages In the quincentennial year of 1992, critical Middle East studies can and should play a powerful, constructive role in the battles against right-wing efforts to deny the multicultural strands of American and Western identity. The usual reaction is to attack ethnocentrism, stereotyping and the Orientalism of establishment culture. But such Michael M.J. Fischer • 14 min read
MER Article Guarding Europe's Gate One of the events planned for 1992 is to “marry” the Statue of Liberty in New York to the statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona. Although they do share a similar aesthetic kitsch style, it will be a difficult union. Consider only the 300-year span between the ages of the groom and the bride, a Marisa Escribano • 4 min read
MER Article Rethinking Jews and Muslims “Your Highness completed the war against the Moors,” Columbus wrote in a letter addressed to the Spanish throne, “after having chased all the Jews...and sent me to the said regions of India in order to convert the people there to our Holy Faith.” [1] In 1492 the defeat of the Muslims and the expulsi Ella Shohat • 11 min read
MER Article Andalusia's Nostalgia for Progress and Harmonious Heresy In southern Spain’s province of Andalusia 1992 is a year of controversy, not because it is the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, but because it commemorates the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada by “foreign invaders from the North.” In other parts of Spain, and even more so in Khalid Duran • 11 min read
MER Article Constructing Europe's New Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall was joyfully welcomed not only by the German people but by the other peoples of the continent: With the abrupt end to the joke about Real Socialism, Europe seemed to be moving forward toward a period of freedom, directed by principles of greater tolerance, compassion and Juan Goytisolo • 7 min read
MER Article Rai, Rap and Ramadan Nights The collapse of the Berlin Wall has forced Western Europe to rethink its identity. In the past its conception of itself as a haven of democracy and civilization depended in part on a contrast to the evils of the Communist bloc. Today there is a revived notion of Europe as David McMurray, Joan Gross, Ted Swedenburg • 18 min read
MER Article "By Compass and Sword!" It is hard not to be impressed by the changes that took place in the world during the second half of the fifteenth century. Bartolomeu Diaz rounded the southern cape of Africa in 1488; Columbus completed his first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492; Vasco da Gama arrived in India Resat Kasaba • 13 min read
MER Article The Europe of Columbus and Bayazid From the perspective of Sultan Bayazid II, the Ottoman ruler in Istanbul, Columbus’ expeditions may have been a distant diversion. In fact, they belonged to a set of profound changes in relations between Islamic and Christian territories on a world scale. For the 500 years before 1492, the fortunes Charles Tilly • 8 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1992) Our intent with this issue is simple enough: to redirect attention from the westward reverberations of European “discoveries” across the Atlantic to their eastward impact in the Mediterranean and the mainly Muslim domains of Arabs and Turks. In the opening essay Charles Tilly reminds us that the integration of what The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Fischer and Abedi, Debating Muslims Michael M.J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition (Wisconsin, 1990). In the older literature on the Middle East and the Muslim world, Islam almost invariably appeared as a religion of fanaticism: austere in its outlook, menacing in its prosely Vinay Lal • 4 min read
MER Article Sadowski, Political Vegetables? Yahya Sadowski, Political Vegetables? Businessman and Bureaucrat in the Development of Egyptian Agriculture (Brookings, 1991). Robert Springborg • 6 min read
MER Article The Other Palestinians Responding both to the Palestinian intifada and long-term developments within their community, Arab citizens of Israel have increasingly asserted their national identity as Palestinians. Israeli nationality is not an option for them, as this is not a recognized legal category. The Israeli bureaucracy officially acknowledges the Arab nationality of the (Author not identified) • 3 min read
