Journal articles on the topic 'Travelers' writings, Arab'

The trip is considered as one of the most important historical sources that supports the researcher with an abundant scientific materials, especially since the travelers have recorded all the observations they saw in the areas they visited. The French travelersare ones of the pioneers of the traveler to the East, there are several factors that make them to be in this trip. In the forefront of which is the religious factor in the framework of what is known as the Christian pilgrimage in which it passes through several stations, including the Cairo station, which contains Christian sanctuaries. From there they continue their pilgrimage trip to the Levant .The nineteenth century witnessed a significant increase in French trips, especially that France got privileges fromThe Ottoman Empire to protect theorthodoxe as well as their holy places, and thus the abundance of French writings, through which we tried to find out the impressions that these travelers make for Arab Islamic cities, and we choose Cairo as one of the most prominent Arab cities at that time, as well as being one of the most prominent stations in French travel.We relied on the descriptive historical method while writing this reaserch paper

The cities and places located on the route of the pilgrims of the Levant were taken care of by Arab and Muslim geographers and travelers, their blogs included a description of their geographical nature and general conditions in terms of water resources and the availability of food, the fodder necessary to feed the animals, and the state of the roads that penetrate or pass next to it in terms of security and difficulty of passage and other things that the traveler should beware of such as thieves and bandits. The books of the pilgrimage also included brief statements aimed at serving the pilgrim and informing him of the route of the road and the conditions of the places located on it. Mafraq (its ancient name: Al-Faddain) occupied an important place before Islam by being located on the ancient Sultanic road (Trajan's road). Its flat terrain contributed to making it a corridor preferred by travelers away from the desert routes to the East, and The Straits of the Ajloun mountains to the West. This paper aims to trace the descriptions of Arab geographers and travelers about Mafraq (Al-Faddain) and note its presence in their writings and in the works of the pilgrimage stations, and to indicate their impressions of it and its geographical location.

This paper provides a critical reading of (1) the ways in which Palestine’s cultural landscape and the indigenous people of Palestine have been represented in the eyes of Western and specifically European travelers and explorers in the 19th century; (2) how various such representations subsequently ‘filtered’ into Israeli geographical texts and writing, and were utilised by Israeli writers and others to (re) write a so-called ‘modern’, but distorted and incomplete historical geography of Palestine. The net result is that much of Palestine’s Arab landscape has been ‘de-historicised’, or as Keith Whitelam (1998 : 11) phrased it, has been ‘silenced’.

Travel writing is a literary genre that remain concerned with travelling accounts or records of a person. Such accounts enable one to know about different cities and countries and become familiar with varied cultures, behavioral patterns and their living conditions. Travel writings are being produced since time immemorial. India is a land of diverse cultures, languages, and food habits that remained a favourite destination among travel enthusiasts living both India and abroad. Many European, Chinese and Arab Travel writers like Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Ibn-e-Battuta and Hiuen Tsang have written at length about their experiences of travelling to India. They all have written works on India, its culture and the people that are living there. Their accounts are not reliable from the information point of view because they are based on whatever these travellers have seen or witnessed around them. They do not provide an actual image of India but rather presented an unrealistic portrayal of India in their writings. They have not focused on the adversities and social evils that were prevalent at that time. Earlier, travel writings remain a product of colonial enterprise. That is why there is a need for India travel writers to discuss their opinions regarding the impression of India and the people at large. Through this paper, I will try to show the history of Indian travel writings and works that are being done under this genre until now. At the same time, I will also discuss about the recent changes that are happening in this genre.

The yearning for a journey towards the places of strangers, the longing to mingle with them and immerse themselves in their lives, and to record everything that is strange and wondrous about their lifestyle, their ways of thinking, their customs and traditions, that is the nature that characterizes man, since ancient times. The lives of the prophets, may blessings and peace be upon them, were frenetic migrations, and a constant movement, length and breadth, in search of a place of intimacy, a comfortable life, and a bright truth. Western poets, writers, philosophers and travelers have also been fond of the journey to the Naked and Islamic East, from the Middle Ages to the present day; The desire to get to know the Easterners closely, to mix with them, and then to dominate them, was evident in the so-called travel literature. It is the writing emanating from the experiences of travelers in the eastern "One Thousand and One Nights". However, these travelers have always hidden the true intentions that drove them on the journey, which, as we will present in the body of this study, are colonial motives deposited in the political consciousness of Western governments that stand behind the colonial phenomenon. It is from this perspective in the research that urgent questions come to the surface, which we are trying to answer. What are the real motives for the trip for Western writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What is their relationship with the Western governments that were colonizing large areas of the Arab countries? What are the representations of Arabs and Muslims in so-called travel literature? The answer to these questions is to reveal to us the colonial nature of the modern West, and the extent of its contempt for non-Westerners, which is supported by myths of racial superiority and self-centeredness in that. It is a belief that has not been affected by the tremendous development in the field of human sciences that our time has witnesse

This paper examines the writings of European travelers, chaplains, and resident doctors on pandemics in the Mediterranean regions from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Using French comparative literary theory, the article highlights how Muslim communities in Egypt, Turkey, Aleppo, and Mecca were stereotyped based on their belief in predestination, their failure to avoid contamination, and their lack of social distancing during plague outbreaks. This paper argues that travelers were influenced by Renaissance humanism, Ars Apodemia, religious discourses, and texts, such as plague tracts, model town concepts, the book of orders, and tales, and that they essentialized Mediterranean Islamicate societies by depicting contamination motifs supposedly shaped by the absence of contagion theory in prophetic medicines. Regarding plague science, this paper concludes that Christian and Muslim intellectuals had similar approaches until the Black Death and that Arabs were eclectic since the Abbasid period. This paper further maintains that the travelers’ approaches fostered chauvinism and the cultural hegemony of the West over the Orient since the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, driven by eschatology, conversion, and power structure narratives.

Recorded Arabic travel logs about Asia in general, and in particular the Subcontinent during the Golden Era, contain interesting narratives about women of the region. This paper surveys narratives by Arab travellers regarding woman and tries to constitute a portrayal that may emerge from their writings. The selected writings for this paper cover 8 centuries (7th to 14th centuries ad) and the Subcontinent including modern-day countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The picture that emerges from this study depicts various aspects about the women of Sub-Continent during these centuries. The most important aspects are: the role of women in society, their legal status and marriage, descriptions of beauty, women’s festivals, slavery, fashion and dresses for various occasions, and women from different classes, castes and religions. An attempt has been made to compare and contrast these narratives among themselves.

Abstract Leone Caetani’s life (1869-1935) was definitely not a common one. Prince of Teano and duke of Sermoneta, he was immersed on the cream of Italian and international aristocracy of his age age of colonialism, age of adventurous travelling. On the tracks of his travels in the Middle East and in the far West, his studies and his personal writings, we tried to sketch this extraordinary figure of Orientalist on the field, of refined and renowned historian of the first period of Islam. A life through the life itself. This — we imagine — may be the right keyword to interpret his natural aptitude for extreme travels from East to West and the back to East — in the Sinai (1888-1889) and Sahara deserts (1890), in the Far West and the Rocky Mountains of Canada (1891), and back in Persia (1894) and India (1899) —, his pulsating interest for the Arabs and their origins, his craving desire to be “with boots in the mud” and “geography in his pocket”. Versed in the languages he used them to get in touch with cultures and peoples almost unknown — such as the Yazidi —, steadily convinced that only a first-hand experience could give back the exact taste of the truth. He was among the first Italians to explore the Sinai and the first Italian traveller ever in the sands of the Algerian Sahara.

Why do we travel? Sometimes we are curious, sometimes we are looking for profit; sometimes we are escaping the mundane or running away from circumstances; some travellers are looking for romance or a chance to immerse themselves in a landscape they love. We travel to understand ourselves as well as the place we are visiting. And our journeys reveal hidden aspects of our character. We may become more adventurous, or perhaps surprise ourselves with our timidity or latent prejudices.It is hard to pin down exactly when travel as a recognised genre first began. Expeditions are one of the oldest human endeavours, and people, be they military officers, missionaries, explorers, scientists or migrants, have combined it with literature ever since linear alphabets were invented. Travel writing as a genre is thought to have begun with Herodotus, the Greek historiographer, who reported from foreign lands in the fifth century BC. Travel literature became popular in China during the Song Dynasty between the 10th and 13th centuries, and it featured strongly in Arab literature from the 15th century onwards.

This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakespeare’s Othello. Specifically, this paper argues that Mahjoub’s historical novel The Carrier (1998) re-writes Shakespeare’s Othello in a way that enables the novelist to comment on some of the themes that remain unexplored in Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Mahjoub appropriates tropes, motifs and episodes from Shakespeare’s play which include places like Cyprus and Aleppo, Othello’s identity, abusive/foul language, animalistic imagery, and motifs like the eye, sorcery/witchcraft, the storm and adventurous travels. Unlike Othello’s fabled and mythical travels and adventures, Mahjoub renders Rashid al-Kenzy’s as realistic and true to life in a way that highlights his vulnerability. In addition, the ill-fated marriage between Othello and Desdemona is adapted in Mahjoub’s novel in the form of a Platonic love that is founded on a scientific dialogue between Rashid al-Kenzy and Sigrid Heinesen, a poet and philosopher woman from Jutland. In this way, Desdemona’s claim that she sees Othello’s visage in his mind, a claim that is strongly undermined by Othello’s irrationality, jealousy and belief in superstitions during the course of the play, is emphasized and foregrounded in Mahjoub’s novel.

Albert Thomas Matson, ‘Mat’ to his many friends, was born in Sipson, Middlesex in 1915. He was educated at Southall Grammar School before joining the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1939.1n 1944 he was seconded to the Colonial Service in Kenya as a Health Inspector. After serving in Kisii he was transferred to Nandi District in 1949, where he remained until his retirement fourteen years later.His interest in Kenyan history arose from a request from Senior Chief Elija arap Chepkwony and his colleagues of the Nandi District Council that the history of their people should be written. Matson responded to their request by undertaking research into oral history in the course of his travels as a Health Inspector and by consulting and copying a great range of archival sources, official and personal, in East Africa and in Britain.

Albert Thomas Matson, ‘Mat’ to his many friends, was born in Sipson, Middlesex in 1915. He was educated at Southall Grammar School before joining the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1939.1n 1944 he was seconded to the Colonial Service in Kenya as a Health Inspector. After serving in Kisii he was transferred to Nandi District in 1949, where he remained until his retirement fourteen years later.His interest in Kenyan history arose from a request from Senior Chief Elija arap Chepkwony and his colleagues of the Nandi District Council that the history of their people should be written. Matson responded to their request by undertaking research into oral history in the course of his travels as a Health Inspector and by consulting and copying a great range of archival sources, official and personal, in East Africa and in Britain.

Translation and the act of writing national history: translations Abu al-Eid Dodo Abu al-Qasim Saad Allah-Abdullah Al-Rukaibi as a model Since the matter required us to rewrite our history, and it was difficult for us to find national sources, as is the case for some other peoples, and even if they existed, they were written by foreign authors, and were characterized by the mutilation, distortion and total obliteration of historical facts and events related to our identity, ancestors and their great exploits, translation is the alternative. The objective of writing our great history is what Abu al-Eid Doudou, Abdullah al-Rakibi, Abu al- Qasim Saadallah and others did. Translation is a cognitive act before it is a work on language, or travels between languages, it is a mediator of interaction between cultures, or a crossing between cultures and at the same time it is a channel of knowledge of identity, the identity of nations whose civilization and history embodied it, and a nation without history, without strength, it has neither a present nor a future. The act of identity and the principle of feeling patriotism and affiliation pushed Abu Eid, Al-Rakibi, and Saadallah to know the history of Algeria, away from the tongue that ruled its dominance over Algerian people for a period of time. There is nothing wrong as long as it provides us with an addition to writing our glorious history through a different tongue in which some of its elements adhered to some integrity and honest transmission of historical events. Abu al-Eid Doudou became aware that translation strengthens cultural patriotism and constitutes the borders that separate languages, societies, systems and minds, so he sought to translate many literary and historical resources, including what Western travelers wrote during their visit to Algeria from the Ottoman presence to the revolution of liberation and shortly after. He is also credited with the fairness of many Algerian personalities who were subjected to distortion, led by Prince Abdul Qadir, by some haters of Algeria, Arabs and Islam all what constitute national unity.

This essay considers how Freud traveled in postwar Egypt through an exploration of the work of Yusuf Murad, the founder of a school of thought within the psychological and human sciences, and provides a close study of the journal he co-edited,Majallat ʿIlm al-Nafs. Translating and blending key concepts from psychoanalysis and psychology with classical Islamic concepts, Murad put forth a dynamic and dialectical approach to selfhood that emphasized the unity of the self, while often insisting on an epistemological and ethical heterogeneity from European psychoanalytic thought, embodied in a rejection of the dissolution of the self and of the death drive. In stark contrast to the so-called “tale of mutual ignorance” between Islam and psychoanalysis, the essay traces a tale of historical interactions, hybridizations, and interconnected webs of knowledge production between the Arab world and Europe. Moving away from binary models of selfhood as either modern or traditional, Western or non-Western, it examines the points of condensation and divergence, and the epistemological resonances that psychoanalytic writings had in postwar Egypt. The coproduction of psychoanalytic knowledge across Arab and European knowledge formations definitively demonstrates the outmoded nature of historical models that presuppose originals and bad copies of the global modern subject—herself so constitutively defined by the presence of the unconscious.

This is an exhaustive survey of the first written records concerning sea-tides and hypotheses for their cause, covering a period from 500 B.C.E. to 1250 C.E. Seamen of antiquity must have gained practical knowledge of tides by experience, but they left no written record. Despite some early Greek references to the subject, the Hellenic civilisation knew little about tides until the reports of travellers like Pytheas and Posidonius (135-51 B.C.E.), Many of the first informed writings are now lost but their gist is known to us, allowing for personal bias and distortion, through Geography by Strabo (ca. 63 B.C.E.-ca. 25 C.E.). Arab astrologers were impressed by the evident relationship to the Moon; they wrote seminal treatises, later translated and copied widely in western Europe. Nevertheless, some non-lunar hypotheses from Greek poetry, involving ocean currents, undersea caverns, and whirlpools, survived through translations for many centuries. During the Medieval period knowledge in Europe was preserved by Christian monks and extended by their observations. Meanwhile, understanding in China developed to the construction of the first known tide-table for predicting the times and heights of a tidal bore, around 1000 C.E.

Saudi Arabia is an extraordinary intermingling between religion and culture. Based on their religion and culture Saudi Arabia women’s met challenges for the public authority over education system. In Arabic countries male dominance and feminisms plays equal roles in order to overcome it the women’s should come front to stand their rights. The place of ladies in this general public is confounded and they need to confront a great deal of obstructions to get instruction as they live under male power constantly. Along these lines, this paper will assess the writing on ladies and society in Saudi Arabia and its connection to their instructive accomplishment, considering a few unique viewpoints including: Feminist hypothesis, Islamic women's liberation in Saudi society, the situation with ladies in Saudi society and the Holy Book of the Muslims as well as their correlation in both. Arab ladies, long consigned to the confidential circle by regulation and social custom, are acquiring new admittance to public life. All nations of the Arab presently have labor force "nationalization arrangements" that expect to decrease reliance on traveler work by getting more ladies into the labor force. Saudi Arabia put forth an objective of 30% female work interest. In Kuwait, female residents dwarf male residents in the labor force. Furthermore, across the Gulf, ladies dwarf men in advanced education enlistment. Ladies are making political advances in the district, as well. In Qatar some ladies have been delegated to ecclesiastical situations beginning and some ladies have stood firm on bureau footholds in Kuwait starting around 2005, including wellbeing pastor, transportation clergyman and money serve. Development going to maintain control feminist part women come in front and restriction for women.

The discourse of Orientalism has often been explored from a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective in fiction works and news media published in the 20th and 21st centuries. What remains a largely unexplored area is Oriental views in non-fiction Western writings of the 19th century. One of the key books describing the people of Arabia from this era is Charles Doughty’s (1888) Travels in Arabia Deserta. For this reason, this study analyzed one chapter from this book to explore Doughty’s representation of the Arabian Peninsula Bedouins. By drawing on CDA and the Appraisal framework, this study identified evaluative lexical items used by Doughty to describe the Bedouins and related these lexical choices to three Oriental themes identified in the literature: (1) Oriental inferiority, (2) Oriental barbarity, and (3) Oriental untrustworthiness. An examination of the Oriental themes in Doughty’s book highlights two characteristics of the discourse of Orientalism. One is the underlying cultural superiority of the West and the other is the interdependence of texts describing the people of Arabia. As such, this paper supports the idea that what is encompassed by the label “discourse of Orientalism” can include even seemingly neutral descriptions of people of Arabia, and that existing representations of Arabs are a product of an accumulated body of work rather than from one specific text.

Abstract The portrait of Muslim and Islam had an effective impact on the Elizabethan stage. It was dramatized paradoxically at the stage. Mostly , Muslims (Turk, Moors, Arabs and Persian) were represented as outsiders, infidels, lustful, violent people and barbarian. At the same time, they were regarded as a great threat to Europe, particularly after the expanses of Ottoman empire. The alliance of Queen Elizabeth with the Ottoman Empire represented by its Sultan Murad 11 had opened a new era of communication, policies and cultural exchange. The Elizabethan playwrights ' writings and imagination were influenced by the tales and stories that narrated about Muslims and their actions. The stories were narrated by captives, travelers politician and traders. In addition, the Elizabethan people kept the Medieval distorted image towards Muslims' characterization . William Shakespeare(1564-1616) portrayed a controversial image of a Muslim who converted to Christianity in his famous play Othello. The study aims at analyzing the Moor's character as a Muslim and his paradoxical action throughout William Shakespeare's Othello. The paper is divided into three sections; the first one is a brief introduction. It is concentrated on the western perspective of Islam, Prophet Muhammad and the eastern people, the second section deals with the Muslim's visage on Elizabethan stage, the third section discusses the contradicting and paradoxical Islam-Christian image of Othello. The Conclusion sums up to the findings of the paper.

Cleopatra (69–30 B. C.) is the last of the sovereigns (51–30 B. C.) of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, that was ruling Egypt in the 4th–1st centuries B. C. As early as in the writings of the authors of Antiquity, she acquired fame as an irresistible and voluptuous beauty. But most of all she became famous for having courageously put an end to her life through a bite of a poisonous snake, as she hated to fall prey to the first Roman Emperor Octavian August (63 B. C. – 14 A. D.; since 31 B. C. — the individual ruler of the Roman State). The fate of the Egyptian Queen was inspiring many European creators of culture in different eras: at the dawn of Modern Times, during the epoch of Romanticism and in the 20th century. The great Arab-Muslim traveler, geographer, historian and belletrist al-Mas‘udi (d. 956) was informed about Cleopatra. He installed into his main surviving work “The Meadows of Gold and the Mines of Germs” the story of the death of the Royal Beauty, which bears a most tragic character. In the version of al-Mas‘udi justice is triumphant, as cruel August (Ughustus) suffers due punishment. While publishing the academic translation of the story about the death of the Egyptian Queen the author of the present lines hopes that it would be interesting both for the academic experts and for the general reader. As a supplement the translation of the life of Ughustus (Octavian August) is attached, which is made on the basis of the same source.

The era of the Crusades was also the era of pilgrims and pilgrimages to Jeru­salem. The Russian Orthodox world did not accept the idea of the Crusades and did not consider the Western European crusaders to be pilgrims. However, Russian people also sought to make pilgrimages, the purpose of which they saw in personal repentance and worship of the Lord. Visiting the Christian relics of Cyprus was desirable for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Based on the method of content analysis of a whole complex of the writings of Russian pil­grims, as well as the works of Cypriot, Byzantine, Arab and Russian chroniclers, the author explores the history of travels and pilgrimages of Russian people to Cyprus in the 12th–18th centuries, the origins of the Russian-Cypriot reli­gious, inter-cultural and political relationships, in addition to the dynamics of their development from the first contacts in the Middle Ages to the establish­ment of permanent diplomatic and political relations between the two coun­tries in the Early Modern Age. Starting with the 17th century, Russian-Cypriot relationships were developing in three fields: 1) Russians in Cyprus; 2) Cypri­ots in Russia; 3) knowledge of Cyprus and interest in Cyprus in Russia. Cyp­riots appeared in Russia (at the court of the Russian tsars) at the beginning of the 17th century. We know of constant correspondence and the exchange of embassies between the Russian tsars and the hierarchs of the Cypriot Ortho­dox Church that took place in the 17th–18th centuries. The presence of Cypri­ots in Russia, the acquisition of information, the study of Cypriot literature, and translations of some Cypriot writings into Russian all promoted interactions on both political and cultural levels. This article emphasizes the important histori­cal, cultural, diplomatic and political functions of the pilgrimages.

The article is an attempt to define a very special role of women in society, inherent in only Ukrainian historical realities. In particular, a somewhat non-trivial approach to the formation of a source base for the study allowed referring to works of fiction. Most attention is paid to the issue of women entering society medium in the times of the Cossacks. Among the conclusions – contrary to national, gender and social oppression for several centuries – Ukrainian women have maintained their commitment to universal human and Christian ideals and virtues. The role and place that women take in the social structure is an extremely significant criterion for assessing the level of civilizing development of one or other society. It was the words “Equal among equals” that one could quite accurately define the positions of Ukrainian women in the glorious and tragic times of the national history – during the emergence and heyday of the Cossacks. It was a time when Ukrainian women, not only a gentry, but also a simple Cossack women, invariably felt not imaginary but sincere self-respect both in the family and in the society. However, not only in Cossack times, but throughout the turbulent history of our country, Ukrainian women did not just “walk alongside of” their men, they often stepped forward, and their actions were decisive for the further course of events for many years to come. Unfortunately, there are reasons to consider the current (as of 2019) stage of research in the format of scientific inquiry, which directly relates to Ukrainian women in the historical and cultural context, only as an initial one. With this in mind, the aim of the proposed work is to begin filling in quite substantial gaps in the civilizing history of Ukraine. It was they, Ukrainian women – even from renowned Princess Olha – who became the worthy examples to follow for their compatriots. There are countless names of women, by whom Ukraine is proud of and who are respected all over the world – from the poetess Lesia Ukrainka, folk paintress Yekateryna Bilokour, opera vocalist Solomiia Krushelnytska up to bright personalities already from the contemporary generation of Ukrainian women. They did never and under no circumstances bow to a slavish worldview. In this regard the observation of a well-known European writer, made by him as far back as in the last century, is very accurate: “The Ukrainian woman is the Spanish woman of the East ... At every opportunity, her irrepressible Cossack nature flares up in her soul that does not know any repressor ...”. And further: “They are always ready to change ploughshares for spears, they live in small republican communities, as equals among equals ...”. We discover all this for ourselves in the “Female Images from Galicia” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Paul of Aleppo, known also as Paul Zaim, an Arab traveller, who visited Ukraine twice in the middle of the XVII century, testified: “... Throughout the Cossack land we saw a strange thing – they all are, with few exceptions, literate; even most of their women and daughters can read and know the procedure of church service ... Ukrainian women are well dressed, busy with their own affairs, and no one casts sassy glances at them.” Numerous documents have survived, indicating that the wives of the Cossack Starshyna not only knew writing and reading well but were also able, when the need arose, to help their husbands in solving the most important political problems. The material, which is no less important in its cognitive weight from documentary evidence, also provides imaginative literature, where the realities of bygone times are reflected through the author’s creative imagination. These are the dramatic poem “Boyaryna” by Lesia Ukrainka, and “Hanna Montovt”, the story written by a famous Ukrainian historian and writer Orest Levytskyi, as well as “Aeneid”, a burlesque and tranny poem written by Ivan Kotliarevskyi; the latter literary work can be considered as a kind of encyclopaedia of Olde Ukrainian life. In “Boyarina”, the comparison of the “civil society” (using the modern definition) of the Ukrainian Cossack State with the conditions prevailing in neighbouring Muscovy is especially striking. A young girl of Ukrainian noble descent, who left her motherland for the sake to be with her beloved man, met in a foreign land very different ideas about human truths, class-specific and inherent female virtues, which are significantly different from those truly Christian and deeply democratic principles of life that she was used to since childhood in her native Ukraine. And, becoming a Boyarina, although she obeyed fate, however, she was no longer able to get used to her new life. The fate of poor Princess Hannа from the story by Orest Levytskyi was formed in a different manner. However, not at all because of the imperfection of the then social system, but solely because of her own frivolity and inability to execise her (tremendous) rights. But in “Aeneid” by Ivan Kotliarevskyi, where antique plots were whimsically intertwined with the signs of Cossack life, the remark: “Like a lady of certain sotnyk ...” became virtually the highest mark for one of the goddesses. As the expression goes, it speaks for itself, and the irony about the mention of the sotnyk will be completely inappropriate, given the trace that Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, the former Chygyryn sotnyk and subsequently a Hetman of Ukraine, left in the history of Ukrainian nationality! In the times of Cossacks, men have the opportunity to spend more or less long time with their families too rarely. But they went to a military campaign with peace of mind because from this moment their faithful wives took active roles in all matters – and not only household, but the domesticities too. And, say, not the eldest of their sons, but she herself took part, when necessary, in resolving property or other disputes, defended the interests of their families before the society, and even in court. Moreover, their wives could often ride horses with arms in hands to defend their native homes. Unfortunately, then-Muscovy have introduced serfdom in its most despotic form on intaken Ukrainian lands, combined with her absolutist system of government and public relations which immediately changed the state of Ukrainian women for the worst. And this applied not only to the impoverished and enslaved people, but also to the wealthy and influential sections of the then population. And subsequently Taras Shevchenko became the most sincere voice of a deeply tragic female fate ... Conclusions. Even when then Ukrainians were slowly forgetting about the previous rights and privileges of their women, undeniable documentary and literary evidence remained the mention of them, which in one way or another were connected with the times of Cossacks. So, Ukrainian women of those, already far from us times was not only faithful wives, caring mothers and teachers for their children, real Bereginias of the families, but also a self-sufficient persons, conscious in their place in the society.

This study seeks to provide a vision as travel literature is an art of Arab literature and a source of archaeological resources to write history. to present a varied picture of the approach of western globetrotters writings about the Arabian Peninsula in general, and the Al-Ehsa'a region and its people in particular, the importance of which is due to its distinguished location on the Arabian Gulf coast that links the west with the East. As the writings of Western globetrotters approaches was drawn up by different points of view in order to reach an appropriate approach for the study of trips literature in general, and to shed light on the methodology of these globetrotters in their writings and their impressions about the Al-Ehsa'a region and to be able to extract an integrated history for the region. To achieve these two aims, it is necessary to review the academic studies concerned with the research. In this study, the researcher used the ethnohistorical approach, which is an approach based on following the methods of the descriptive ethnographic approach, by examining the content of the writings of globetrotters as a research sample, and then following the description through the reality of the observations, and on collecting the scientific material from the books of western globetrotters during that period, and Then study and analyze it. To elicit and extract conclusions from their books as globetrotters and researchers, but in death they only came to collect information and present it to their countries, while they left us with a historical legacy that reveals the extent of their interest in studying Muslim societies, and informs us to know what was in the past after examining and checking it. The most important recommendations: to Establish centers for writing foreign studies, examining and auditing them.

Мақалада ІХ-Х ғасырлардағы қазақ жерінің араб зерттеушілері тарапынан зерттеу барысындағы жазба деректеріне шолу жасалып, жер су атауларына талдау жасалынған. Сонымен бірге олардың жазбаларындағы жер су атауларындағы ұқсастықтар мен айырмашылықтар туралы сөз қозғалған және оны қазіргі кездегі атауларымен салыстырылды. Ең алғашқы зерттеулер қазақ жерінде ортағасырда жүргізілген болатын. Зерттеулердің бастауы араб саяхатшылардар басталды. Араб және парсы зерттеушілер қазақ жерлерін картаға түсіріп отырған. Жергілікті атауларға ерекше мән берген болатын. Әсіресе, өзен және көл атаулары осы уақытқа дейін сақталып келеді. Жазбалар ескі жазумен жазылған. Мақалада Осман империясының Орталық мұрағатынан алынған деректер қолданылған. Зерттеу жұмыстарында электронды кітапханалардың құнды деректеріне талдаулар келтірілген. Ежелгі қалалар, олардың тіршілігі, мекен еткен халықтардың дәстүрлеріне шолу жасалынған. Әрбір зерттеушінің еңбектеріне талдау жасалып, қазіргі Қазақстан картасындағы атаулармен сәйкестендіріліп, қорытындылар шығарылды. Ежелгі қалалардың климаттық жағдайы мен өзен- көлдердің гидрологиялық режимі географиялық тұрғыда талданды. Зерттеушілердің ежелгі карта- сызбалары қазіргі географиялық картамен салыстырылып, салыстырмалы-географиялық сипаттама жасалды. Ортағасырда араб саяхатшылары қазақ жері туралы құнды географиялық деректер қалдырды. Кілт сөздер. жиһангез, саяхат жасау, орта ғасыр, экспедиция, тарихи-географиялық деректер, Ұлы жібек жолы, араб жазбалары, жылнама, тарихи карта, географиялық атау, топонимдер, тарихи сызба. В статье сделан обзор письменных источников в ходе исследования арабскими исследователями казахской земли ІХ-Х веков, проведен анализ названий вод Земли. В то же время речь в их трудах шла о сходствах и различиях в названиях земной воды и сравнивалась с ее нынешними названиями. Первые исследования проводились на казахской земле в средневековье. Начало исследований положили арабские путешественники. Арабские и персидские исследователи наносили на карту казахские земли. Особое внимание было уделено местным названиям. Особенно до сих пор сохранились названия рек и озер. Записи написаны старой надписью. В статье использованы данные из Центрального архива Османской империи. В исследовательских работах представлен анализ ценных данных электронных библиотек. Дан обзор древних городов, их жизни, традиций народов, населявших их. Были проанализированы труды каждого исследователя, сопоставлены с названиями на карте современного Казахстана и сделаны выводы. Географически проанализированы климатические условия древних городов и гидрологический режим рек и озер. Древняя карта-схема исследователей была сопоставлена с современной географической картой и составлена сравнительно-географическая характеристика. В средневековье арабские путешественники оставили ценные географические данные о казахской земле. Ключевые слова. путешественник, путешествия, средневековье, экспедиция, историко- географические данные, Великий Шелковый путь, арабские надписи, летопись, историческая карта, географическое название, топонимы, историческая схема The article provides an overview of written sources in the course of the study by Arab researchers of the Kazakh land of the IX-X centuries, the analysis of the names of the waters of the Earth is carried out. At the same time, their writings dealt with the similarities and differences in the names of the earth's water and compared it with its current names. The first studies were conducted on the Kazakh land in the Middle Ages. The beginning of the research was laid by Arab travelers. Arab and Persian researchers mapped Kazakh lands. Special attention was paid to local names. Especially the names of rivers and lakes are still preserved. The entries are written in an old inscription. The article uses data from the Central Archive of the Ottoman Empire. The research papers present an analysis of valuable data from electronic libraries. An overview of ancient cities, their life, traditions of the peoples who inhabited them is given. The works of each researcher were analyzed, compared with the names on the map of modern Kazakhstan and conclusions were drawn. The climatic conditions of ancient cities and the hydrological regime of rivers and lakes are geographically analyzed. The ancient map-scheme of the researchers was compared with a modern geographical map and a comparative geographical characteristic was compiled. In the Middle Ages, Arab travelers left valuable geographical data about the Kazakh land. Keywords. traveler, travel, the Middle Ages, expedition, historical and geographical data, the Great Silk Road, Arabic inscriptions, chronicle, historical map, geographical name, toponyms, historical scheme

We are pleased to introduce to our esteemed readers this special issue on the conference proceedings on “Occidentalism in Contemporary Cognitive Deliberation: Toward Objective Scientific Vision for Exploring the Other”. For decades Occidentalism has been receiving growing academic interest for its substantial importance in several domains. Dialog among civilizations and strategic relations between East and West is perhaps the most salient example. This Conference is the outcome of tireless work and close cooperation between Kuwait University, represented by the Journal of Sharia and Islamic Studies, and Qatar University College of Sharia, represented by the ISESCO Chair in Alliance of Civilizations. Scholars and researchers specializing in this field were invited to participate in the Conference. The Conference was held on ZOOM on 28/2/2021. This issue features the fruit of twinning between two well-established journals in the Arabian Gulf: Journal of Sharia and Islamic Studies at Kuwait University and Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies at Qatar University. We are grateful to all those who contributed to this achievement and appreciate the efforts of the journal’s former editorial board. We thank the Almighty God for selecting our Journal for inclusion in the Arabic Citation Index (ARCI) on the Web of Science, this year. The Conference culminated in serious, insightful and well-founded studies on occidentalism Conference papers covered different aspects in Occidentalism discourse, such as Dr. Zahia Smail Salhi's “The Arab World and the Occident: Toward the Construction of an Occidentalist Discourse” and Dr. Youssef Ban El Mahdi's “Contemporary Arab Discourse of Occidentalism: A Reading in the Paradigms, Introductions and Results”. Furthermore, the Conference touched on the criticism of the intellectual foundations and legitimacy, such as in “Foundational premises for objective research in Occidentalism,” by Dr. Azzeddine Mamiche. The presence of Occidentalism in Eastern, Far-Eastern, and Latin experiences was also discussed in Dr. Mabrouk Mansouri's “The Deliberation of Occidentalism in Contemporary Global Thought: A Comparative Study of Japanese and Western thoughts”. The theoretical underpinnings of the subject were also explored as in Dr. Hassan Azzouzi's “The Need of Methodological Rules composing the Occidentalist Thought”. Moreover, Indian Occidentalism was present in “In Retrospect: Indian Occidentalism, Reference-corpus and Questions of Specificity” by Dr. Mohammad Sanaullah AlNadawi. Finally, religious identities were also discussed in “The Jewish Community between Orientalism and Occidentialism” by Prof. Muhammad Khalifa Hasan. From the findings of the Conference, select papers of which will be featured in this exceptional issue of our journal, we can conclude that geographical diversity is an undisputed reality, and cultural diversity is inevitable (Had your Lord willed, He would have made mankind one nation, but they continue to have their differences) [Hud 11: 118]. East and West are different in nature, roots, motives and aims. The great principles and lofty values, as elaborated by the Islamic perspective, are the available and accessible means to build relations, including:  Human Succession: Human beings are the successors of Allah on Earth. The have a religious obligation to fulfill the duties of succession, promote growth and prosperity on earth, spread justice, and avoid injustice, aggression, and bloodletting.  Human Unity: Humanity has one origin, and all human beings descend from a single common ancestor. Hence, there should be no inequality between races or repugnant racism. The criteria for excellence and preference shall be righteousness, good deeds and working for the common good (The noblest of you before Allah is the most righteous of you) [al-Hujurat 49: 13]. The difference is one of the main objectives of creation. It shall entail coming to know and cooperate with one another, rather than rivalry, antagonism, and arrogance.  Dialog and Coming to Common Terms: Dialog with the other is a civil imperative to build a compassionate human model. This is the premise for cultural exchange and cross-fertilization, the exchange of useful experiences serving the humanity of humans, and coming together to promote growth and prosperity on earth. Humanity has much in common regarding what could serve upright conduct and promote human welfare and prosperity on earth.  Utilizing the Islamic experience in knowing and building fair normal relations with other this could be found in the writings of religious scholars, comparative religion scholars, Muslim geographists and travelers. These writings have yielded a wide network of ties with the East and West and these efforts have contributed to the establishment of the just and prosperous Islamic civilization, as Muslims depended on the overriding Qur'anic rule (God does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with anyone who has not fought you for your faith or driven you out of your homes: God loves the just. However, God forbids you to take as allies those who have fought against you for your faith, driven you out of your homes, and helped others to drive you out: any of you who take them as allies will truly be wrongdoers) [Al-Mumtahinah 60: 8-9]. Let us not prejudice the reader, as the cited studies are through and sufficient. The published papers encourage researchers to make their contributions, criticisms, questioning and additions, which will benefit all. It is worth noting that while this JCSIS special issue on “Occidentalist Thought in Contemporary Intellectual Discourse” is being published, Qatar University Press is preparing to publish the first parts of the “Encyclopedia of Occidentalism”; which is the first of its kind largest intellectual encyclopedia in the Arab and Islamic world that studies and focuses on the West. These encyclopedia’s entries have been written by more than eighty researchers from four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America). It is being issued in collaboration between a number of entities, including; the Qatari Committee for the Alliance of Civilizations (QCAC) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ISESCO Chair in Alliance of Civilizations, and the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies at Qatar University.

Some types of literature created in the Islamic world and Europe during the medieval period describe Goryeo’s topography as an island or a group of islands instead of a peninsula. Such records have been mentioned several times in diverse fields, including history, geography, and cartography. This study reviewed medieval Islamic literature and European literature published in the Islamic world and Europe, respectively, over hundreds of years. It organized records describing Goryeo, as well as Silla and Joseon—kingdoms established before and after Goryeo, respectively—as an island or group of islands and analyzed the background that caused medieval Arab and European people to regard these places as such. The analytical results indicate that the background for medieval Arab and European people’s perception of the Korean Peninsula as an island or group of islands differed by region and period. This study’s results suggest that these inaccurate records on Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon were created because writers who never traveled to the Korean Peninsula referred to false knowledge passed down from their ancestors and unreliable information directly or indirectly obtained from adjacent countries. They mixed fictitious and factual stories when writing their books.

The Tanzanian coast has many remains of medieval Swahili settlements dated between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries C.E. In the same region, Neolithic and Later Stone Age sites have also been reported, alongside evidence for Early Iron Working settlements. Swahili culture, and the ruins that can still be seen, have their origins in this rich cultural past. It appears, however, that the present communities along the Tanzanian Swahili coast, and the public, are unaware of this important heritage history. There is a popular belief among them that the origin and influence on the now ruined Swahili settlements came from the Middle East, and it is true that Arab and other travellers described Swahili civilization in their writings. In this article, we explore the communities and researchers’ different perspectives on the origin of the Swahili ruins, focusing on the conservation and management problems this raises. We also analyse the position and role of heritage management institutions in the country towards enhancing community awareness and proper conservation of the ruins. Finally, we propose ways of promoting community awareness of the origin of the Swahili ruins, influencing participation and actions towards their conservation and management.

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories of a City Fiona SmythGerald MacLean (ed.), Re-Orienting the Renaissance. Cultural Exchanges with the East Clifford Edmund Bosworth, An Intrepid Scot. William Lithgow of Lanark’s Travels in the Ottoman Lands, North Africa and Central Europe, 1609–21 Alex Drace-FrancisDaniel Carey (ed.), Asian Travel in the Renaissance John E. Wills, Jr.Gerald M. MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580–1720 Felipe Fernández-ArmestoDebbie Lisle, The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing Benjamin J. MullerBassam Tayara, Le Japon et les Arabes. La vision du Monde Arabe au Japon, des époques anciennes jusqu’au tournant de Meiji Elisabeth AllèsAlain Roussillon, Identité et Modernité – Les voyageurs égyptiens au Japon Bassam TayaraBenoit de L’Estoile, Federico Neiburg, and Lygia Sigaud (eds.), Empires, Nations, and Natives: Anthropology and State-Making Talal Asad

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)Doubt has been my closest companion for several years as I struggle to make sense of certain hidden events from within my family’s history. The actual nature of such events, although now lost to us, can nevertheless be explored through the distorting lens of memory and academic research. I base such explorations in part on my intuition and sensitivity to emotional experience, which are inevitably riddled with doubt. I write from the position of a psychoanalytic psychologist who is also a creative writer and my doubts increase further when I use the autobiographical impulse as a driving force. I am not alone with such uncertainties. Ross Gibson, an historian and filmmaker, uses his doubts to explore empty spaces in the Australian landscape. He looks to see “what’s gone missing” as he endeavours with a team of colleagues to build up some “systematic comprehension in response to fragments” (Gibson, “Places” 1). How can anyone be certain as to what has transpired with no “facts” to go on? he asks. What can we do with our doubts? To this end, Gibson has collected a series of crime scene photographs, taken in post war Sydney, and created a display – a photographic slide show with a minimalist musical score, mostly of drumming and percussion, coupled with a few tight, poetic words, in the form of haiku, splattered across the screen. The notes accompanying the photographic negatives were lost. The only details “known” include the place, the date and the image. Of some two thousand photos, Gibson selected only fifty for display, by hunch, by nuance, or by whatever it was that stirred in him when he first glimpsed them. He describes each photo as “the imprint of a scream”, a gut reaction riddled with doubt (Gibson and Richards, Wartime). In this type of research, creative imaginative flair is essential, Gibson argues. “We need to propose ‘what if’ scenarios that help us account for what has happened…so that we can better envisage what might happen. We need to apprehend the past” (Gibson, “Places” 2). To do this we need imagination, which involves “a readiness to incorporate the unknown…when one encounters evidence that’s in smithereens”, the evidence of the past that lies rooted in a seedbed of doubt (Gibson, “Places” 2). The sociologist, Avery Gordon, also argues in favour of the imaginative impulse. “Fiction is getting pretty close to sociology,” she suggests as she begins her research into the business of ghosts and haunting (Gordon 38). As we entertain our doubts we tune in with our uncertain imaginations. “The places where our discourse is unauthorised by virtue of its unruliness…take us away from abstract questions of method, from bloodless professionalised questions, toward the materiality of institutionalised storytelling, with all its uncanny repetitions” (Gordon 39). If we are to dig deeper, to understand more about the emotional truth of our “fictional” pasts we must look to “the living traces, the memories of the lost and disappeared” (Gordon ix). According to Janice Radway, Gordon seeks a new way of knowing…a knowing that is more a listening than a seeing, a practice of being attuned to the echoes and murmurs of that which has been lost but which is still present among us in the form of intimations, hints, suggestions and portents … ghostly matters … . To be haunted is to be tied to historical and social effects. (x) And to be tied to such effects is to live constantly in the shadow of doubt. A photograph of my dead baby sister haunts me still. As a child I took this photo to school one day. I had peeled it from its corners in the family album. There were two almost identical pictures, side by side. I hoped no one would notice the space left behind. “She’s dead,” I said. I held the photo out to a group of girls in the playground. My fingers had smeared the photo’s surface. The children peered at the image. They wanted to stare at the picture of a dead baby. Not one had seen a dead body before, and not one had been able to imagine the stillness, a photographic image without life, without breath that I passed around on the asphalt playground one spring morning in 1962 when I was ten years old. I have the photo still—my dead sister who bears the same name as my older sister, still living. The dead one has wispy fine black hair. In the photo there are dark shadows underneath her closed eyes. She looks to be asleep. I do not emphasise grief at the loss of my mother’s first-born daughter. My mother felt it briefly, she told me later. But things like that happened all the time during the war. Babies were born and died regularly. Now, all these years later, these same unmourned babies hover restlessly in the nurseries of generations of survivors. There is no way we can be absolute in our interpretations, Gibson argues, but in the first instance there is some basic knowledge to be generated from viewing the crime scene photographs, as in viewing my death photo (Gibson, "Address"). For example, we can reflect on the décor and how people in those days organised their spaces. We can reflect on the way people stood and walked, got on and off vehicles, as well as examine something of the lives of the investigative police, including those whose job it was to take these photographs. Gibson interviewed some of the now elderly men from the Sydney police force who had photographed the crime scenes he displays. He asked questions to deal with his doubts. He now has a very different appreciation of the life of a “copper”, he says. His detective work probing into these empty spaces, digging into his doubts, has reduced his preconceptions and prejudices (Gibson, "Address"). Preconception and prejudice cannot tolerate doubt. In order to bear witness, Gibson says we need to be speculative, to be loose, but not glib, “narrativising” but not inventive, with an eye to the real world (Gibson, "Address"). Gibson’s interest in an interpretation of life after wartime in Sydney is to gather a sense of the world that led to these pictures. His interpretations derive from his hunches, but hunches, he argues, also need to be tested for plausibility (Gibson, Address). Like Gibson, I hope that the didactic trend from the past—to shut up and listen—has been replaced by one that involves “discovery based learning”, learning that is guided by someone who knows “just a little more”, in a common sense, forensic, investigative mode (Gibson, “Address”). Doubt is central to this heuristic trend. Likewise, my doubts give me permission to explore my family’s past without the paralysis of intentionality and certainty. “What method have you adopted for your research?” Gordon asks, as she considers Luce Irigaray’s thoughts on the same question. It is “a delicate question. For isn’t it the method, the path to knowledge, that has always also led us away, led us astray, by fraud and artifice” (Gordon 38). So what is my methodology? I use storytelling meshed with theory and the autobiographical. But what do you think you’re doing? my critics ask. You call this research? I must therefore look to literary theorists on biography and autobiography for support. Nancy Miller writes about the denigration of the autobiographical, particularly in academic circles, where the tendency has been to see the genre as “self indulgent” in its apparent failure to maintain standards of objectivity, of scrutiny and theoretical distance (Miller 421). However, the autobiographical, Miller argues, rather than separating and dividing us through self-interests can “narrow the degree of separation” by operating as an aid to remembering (425). We recognise ourselves in another’s memoir, however fleetingly, and the recognition makes our “own experience feel more meaningful: not ‘merely’ personal but part of the bigger picture of cultural memory” (Miller 426). I speak with some hesitation about my family of origin yet it frames my story and hence my methodology. For many years I have had a horror of what writers and academics call “structure”. I considered myself lacking any ability to create a structure within my writing. I write intuitively. I have some idea of what I wish to explore and then I wait for ideas to enter my mind. They rise to the surface much like air bubbles from a fish. I wait till the fish joggles my bait. Often I write as I wait for a fish to bite. This writing, which is closely informed by my reading, occurs in an intuitive way, as if by instinct. I follow the associations that erupt in my mind, even as I explore another’s theory, and if it is at all possible, if I can get hold of these associations, what I, too, call hunches, then I follow them, much as Gibson and Gordon advocate. Like Gordon, I take my “distractions” seriously (Gordon, 31-60). Gordon follows ghosts. She looks for the things behind the things, the things that haunt her. I, too, look for what lies beneath, what is unconscious, unclear. This writing does not come easily and it takes many drafts before a pattern can emerge, before I, who have always imagined I could not develop a structure, begin to see one—an outline in bold where the central ideas accrue and onto which other thoughts can attach. This structure is not static. It begins with the spark of desire, the intercourse of opposing feelings, for me the desire to untangle family secrets from the past, to unpack one form, namely the history as presented within my family and then to re-assemble it through a written re-construction that attempts to make sense of the empty spaces left out of the family narrative, where no record, verbal or written, has been provided. This operates against pressure from certain members of my family to leave the family past unexplored. My methodology is subjective. Any objectivity I glean in exploring the work and theories of others comes through my own perspective. I read the works of academics in the literary field, and academics from psychoanalysis interested in infant development and personality theory. They consider these issues in different ways from the way in which I, as a psychotherapist, a doubt-filled researcher, and writer, read and experience them. To my clinician self, these ideas evolve in practice. I do not see them as mere abstractions. To me they are living ideas, they pulse and flow, and yet there are some who would seek to tie them down or throw them out. Recently I asked my mother about the photo of her dead baby, her first-born daughter who had died during the Hongerwinter (Hunger winter) of 1945 in Heilo, Holland. I was curious to know how the photo had come about. My curiosity had been flamed by Jay Ruby’s Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America, a transcript on the nature of post-mortem photography, which includes several photos of dead people. The book I found by chance in a second-hand books store. I could not leave these photographs behind. Ruby is concerned to ask questions about why we have become so afraid of death, at least in the western world, that we no longer take photographs of our loved ones after death as mementos, or if we take such photos, they are kept private, not shared with the public, for fear that the owners might be considered ghoulish (Ruby 161). I follow in Gordon’s footsteps. She describes how one day, on her way to a conference to present a paper, she had found herself distracted from her conference topic by thoughts of a woman whose image she had discovered was “missing” from a photo taken in Berlin in 1901. According to Gordon’s research, the woman, Sabina Spielrein, should have been present in this photo, but was not. Spielrein is a little known psychoanalyst, little known despite the fact that she was the first to hypothesise on the nature of the death instinct, an unconscious drive towards death and oblivion (Gordon 40). Gordon’s “search” for this missing woman overtook her initial research. My mother could not remember who took her dead baby’s photograph, but suspected it was a neighbour of her cousin in whose house she had stayed. She told me again the story she has told me many times before, and always at my instigation. When I was little I wondered that my mother could stay dry-eyed in the telling. She seemed so calm, when I had imagined that were I the mother of a dead baby I would find it hard to go on. “It is harder,” my mother said, to lose an older child. “When a child dies so young, you have fewer memories. It takes less time to get over it.” Ruby concludes that after World War Two, postmortem photographs were less likely to be kept in the family album, as they would have been in earlier times. “Those who possess death-related family pictures regard them as very private pictures to be shown only to selected people” (Ruby 161). When I look at the images in Ruby’s book, particularly those of the young, the children and babies, I am struck again at the unspoken. The idea of the dead person, seemingly alive in the photograph, propped up in a chair, on a mother’s lap, or resting on a bed, lifeless. To my contemporary sensibility it seems wrong. To look upon these dead people, their identities often unknown, and to imagine the grief for others in that loss—for grief there must have been such that the people remaining felt it necessary to preserve the memory—becomes almost unbearable. It is tempting to judge the past by present standards. In 1999, while writing her historical novel Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks came across a letter Henry James had written ninety eight years earlier to a young Sarah Orne Jewett who had previously sent him a manuscript of her historical novel for comment. In his letter, James condemns the notion of the historical novel as an impossibility: “the invention, the representation of the old consciousness, the soul, the sense of horizon, the vision of individuals in whose minds half the things that make ours, that make the modern world,” are all impossible, he insisted (Brooks 3). Despite Brooks’s initial disquiet at James’s words, she realised later that she had heard similar ideas uttered in different contexts before. Brooks had worked as a journalist in the Middle East and Africa: “They don’t think like us,” white Africans would say of their black neighbours, or Israelis of Arabs or upper class Palestinians about their desperately poor refugee-camp brethren … . “They don’t value life as we do. They don’t care if their kids get killed—they have so many of them”. (Brookes 3) But Brooks argues, “a woman keening for a dead child sounds exactly as raw in an earth-floored hovel as it does in a silk-carpeted drawing room” (3). Brooks is concerned to get beyond the certainties of our pre-conceived ideas: “It is human nature to put yourself in another’s shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy”(3). And empathy again requires the capacity to tolerate doubt. Later I asked my mother yet again about what it was like for her when her baby died, and why she had chosen to have her dead baby photographed. She did not ask for the photograph to be taken, she told me. But she was glad to have it now; otherwise nothing would remain of this baby, buried in an unfamiliar cemetery on the other side of the world. Why am I haunted by this image of my dead baby sister and how does it connect with my family’s secrets? The links are still in doubt. Gibson’s creative flair, Gordon’s ideas on ghostly matters and haunting, the things behind the things, my preoccupation with my mother’s dead baby and a sense that this sister might mean less to me did I not have the image of her photograph planted in my memory from childhood, all come together through parataxis if we can bear our doubts. Certainty is the enemy of introspection of imagination and of creativity. Yet too much doubt can paralyse. Here I write about tolerable levels of doubt tempered with an inquisitive mind that can land on hunches and an imagination that allows the researcher to follow such hunches and then seek evidence that corroborates or disproves them. As Gibson writes elsewhere, I tried to use all these scrappy details to help people think about the absences and silences between all the pinpointed examples that made up the scenarios that I presented in prose that was designed to spur rigorous speculation rather than lock down singular conclusions. (“Extractive” 2) Ours is a positive doubt, one that expects to find something, however “unexpected”, rather than a negative doubt that expects nothing. For doubt in large doses can paralyse a person into inaction. Furthermore, a balanced state of doubt fosters connectivity. As John Patrick Shanley’s character, the parish priest, Father Flynn, in the film Doubt, observes, “there are these times in our life when we feel lost. It happens and it’s a bond” (Shanley). References Brooks, Geraldine. "Timeless Tact Helps Sustain a Literary Time Traveller." New York Times, 2001. 14 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/02/arts/writers-on-writing-timeless-tact-helps-sustain-a-literary-time-traveler.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm›. Doubt. Shanley, Dir. J. P. Shanley. Miramax Films, 2008. Gibson, Ross, and Kate Richards. “Life after Wartime.” N.d. 25 Feb. 2011. ‹http://www.lifeafterwartime.com/›. Gibson, Ross. “The Art of the Real Conference.” Keynote address. U Newcastle, 2008. Gibson, Ross. “Places past Disappearance.” Transformations 13-1 (2006). 22 Feb. 2007 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_13/article_01.shtml›. ———. “Extractive Realism.” Australian Humanities Review 47 (2009). 25 Feb. 2011 ‹http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2009/gibson.html›. Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 2008. Miller, Nancy K. “But Enough about Me, What Do You Think of My Memoir?” The Yale Journal of Criticism 13.2 (2000): 421-536. Ruby, Jay. Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1995.

OPENING Welcome to this special feature of Approaches, which was inspired by the 1st Mediterranean Music Therapy Meeting. Organised by the Giovanni Ferrari Music Therapy School of Padua, with the support of the Italian Association of Professional Music Therapists (AIM) and the Italian Confederation of Associations and Music Therapy Schools (CONFIAM), this event took place on 22nd September 2018 in Padua, Italy. Reflecting the theme of this meeting, Dialogue on Music Therapy Interventions for Dementia and End-of-Life Care: Voices from Beyond the Sea, this special feature aims to raise awareness and promote dialogue around music therapy in the Mediterranean region with a focus on dementia and end-of-life care settings. The special feature contains brief country reports. Although reports vary in writing style and depth of information, each report has a two-fold overall focus: to outline briefly the current state of music therapy within each country and to describe particular applications of music therapy within dementia and end-of-life care contexts. Additionally, this special feature contains a Preface by Melissa Brotons, who was the keynote speaker at the 1st Mediterranean Music Therapy Meeting, as well as a conference report outlining key aspects of this meeting. THE SEA AROUND US: A NOTE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN The name of the Mediterranean Sea originates from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning “middle of the earth”. This name was first used by the Romans reflecting their perception of the sea as the middle or the centre of the earth. Interestingly, while perceived as a middle point, the Mediterranean was also experienced as something that surrounded people. Thus, both the Ancient Greeks and the Romans called the Mediterranean “our sea” or “the sea around us” (mare nostrum in Latin, orἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ’ἡμᾶς [hē thálassa hē kath’hēmâs] in Greek). The Mediterranean Sea is linked to the Atlantic Ocean. It is surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Asia Minor, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by Western Asia. Since antiquity the Mediterranean has been a vital waterway for merchants and travellers, facilitating trade and cultural exchange between peoples of the region. The Mediterranean region has been the birthplace of influential civilizations on its shores, and the history of the region is crucial to understanding the origins and evolvement of the modern Western world. Throughout its history the region has been dramatically affected by conflict, war and occupation. The Roman Empire and the Arab Empire are past examples with lasting footprints in the region; while ongoing conflicts in Syria, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are contemporary examples, some of which have led to a refugee crisis in the region. As such, the history of the region has been accompanied by endeavours and struggles to define and redefine national identities, territories and borders. Interestingly, Cyprus is one of just two nations, and the first one in the world, to include its map on its flag (the second is Kosovo – a Balkan country close to the Mediterranean region). The sea touches three continents, and today the Mediterranean region can be understood, framed and divided differently based on varying geopolitical and other perspectives (see, for example, the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the World Health Organization [WHO, 2020]). For the purposes of this special feature, we understand the Mediterranean region as including 12 countries in Europe, five in Asia and five in Africa. These countries, in clockwise order, are Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Despite its relatively small geographical area, the Mediterranean region is characterised by the richness of cultures, religions and musical traditions. Likewise, there is a dramatic diversity in terms of political and socio-economic situations. This diversity is equally reflected in the development of dementia and end-of-life care in these countries. Regarding dementia care, in 2016, the Monegasque Association for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease, published the Alzheimer and the Mediterranean Report where is underlined that “[in] many Mediterranean countries, there is still little knowledge about the problems surrounding Alzheimer’s disease, which remains under-estimated and insufficiently documented” (AMPA, 2016, p.7). The report identified a concerning rise in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders in the Mediterranean area, but little biomedical, fundamental and clinical research, unequal and unspecialised access to home care services, and also a general lack of training among professionals and a lack of status recognition for family carers. In terms of end-of-life care, in 2017 the first systematic attempt to map and assess the development of palliative care in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region was published (Osman et al., 2017). Results demonstrate that palliative care development in Eastern Mediterranean countries is scarce. Most countries are at the very initial stages of palliative care development, with only a small fraction of patients needing palliative care being able to access it. This situation also applies to the integration and provision of palliative care within care homes and nursing homes offering long-term care for older people (Froggatt et al., 2017). Recent reviews also demonstrate that palliative care is variable and inconsistent across the region, while various barriers exist to the development of palliative care delivery. Examples of such barriers include the lack of relevant national policies, limited palliative care training for professionals and volunteers, as well as weak public awareness around death and dying (Fadhil et al., 2017). Similar barriers around legislation, training and public awareness are met in the development of music therapy in many Mediterranean countries. Music therapy, as a contemporary profession and discipline, and indeed its applications in dementia and end-of-life care, are equally limited and characterised by diversity across the region. As such, this special feature is a modest attempt to bring together perspectives and present initial information for areas of work which are not widely developed, explored or documented so far in most Mediterranean countries. Hopefully this publication will raise further awareness and inform the future development of music therapy with specific reference to its potential applications to dementia and end-of-life care in each country. This becomes even more relevant considering the increase of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cancer, in the region (Fadhil et al., 2017). BEHIND THE SCENES Inviting authors Although the 1st Mediterranean Music Therapy Meeting included speakers only from a few Mediterranean countries, this special feature attempted to include authors from every single Mediterranean country. In addition to inviting the speakers from the meeting to contribute to this special feature, we invited authors from each of the other Mediterranean countries. After listing all the countries, we tried to identify music therapists in each of them. We drew on our own professional networks, as well as information available on the websites of the European Music Therapy Confederation (EMTC) and the World Federation for Music Therapy (WFMT), along with relevant publications in the open access journals Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy and Voices: A World Forum of Music Therapy. In countries where we could not identify a music therapist (with or without direct experience of working in dementia and end-of-life care), we attempted to identify and invite other relevant professionals with an explicit interest in music therapy. When this second option was impossible, no authors were invited. There were also cases where potential authors who met the above criteria did not respond to the invitation. As such, this special feature does not include a report from every Mediterranean country. The absence of reports from some countries, however, does not necessarily reflect the lack of music therapy work in these countries. Some of the contributing authors are members or representatives of professional associations and some are not. In either case, their contribution to this special feature aims to represent their views and experiences as individuals without claiming to represent national or other professional bodies. Depending on the position of each individual author, different aspects of music therapy may be explored, prioritised, silenced or challenged in each country report. We want to be clear: these reports are not about absolute ‘truths’ and do not provide comprehensive accounts of music therapy and of its applications in dementia and end-of-life care in each country. Instead of being a ‘full stop’, we see these reports as an opening; as invitations for dialogue, debate, critique and mutual growth. We encourage readers to engage with the contents of this special feature critically; being informed by their own experiences and practices, as well as by related literature and historical trajectories in the field (e.g. De Backer et al., 2013; Dileo-Maranto, 1993; Hesser & Heinemann, 2015; Ridder & Tsiris, 2015a; Schmid, 2014; Stegemann et al., 2016). The challenge of the review process All reports were peer-reviewed. Although we strived to ensure a ‘blind’ review process, this was difficult to achieve in certain cases due to the nature of the reports and the small size of the music therapy communities in certain countries. We invited music therapists living and working in Mediterranean countries to serve as reviewers. We also invited some music therapists living in other parts of the world, given their experience and role within international music therapy bodies and initiatives. Reviewers were requested to evaluate not only the accuracy of the information provided in each report but also the reflexive stance of the authors. This comes with acknowledging that in some instances authors and reviewers came from diverse professional and disciplinary spheres, where music therapy can be understood and practised differently. This was particularly relevant to country reports where we could not identify reviewers with ‘inland’ knowledge of the music therapy field and of its relevance to local dementia and end-of-life care contexts. Towards hospitality Professionalisation issues – which seem to be a common denominator across the reports of this special feature – are often an area of controversy and conflict, where alliances and oppositions have emerged over the history of the music therapy profession within and beyond the Mediterranean region. Writing a country report, and indeed reviewing and editing a collection of such reports, can be a ‘hot potato’! Although it is impossible to remain apolitical, we argue (and we have actively tried to promote this through our editorial and reviewing work) that a constructive dialogue needs to be characterised by reflexivity. It needs to be underpinned by openness and transparency regarding our own values and assumptions, our pre-understanding, our standpoint, as well as our invested interests. Professionalisation conflicts within some Mediterranean countries have led to the development of multiple and, at times, antagonistic associations and professional bodies. In Spain, for example, there are over 40 associations (Mercadal-Brotons et al., 2015), whereas in Italy there are four main associations (Scarlata, 2015). In other countries, such as Greece (Tsiris, 2011), there are communication challenges and conflicting situations between professional association, training programmes and governmental departments. Although such challenges tend to remain unarticulated and ‘hidden’ from the professional literature and discourse, they have real implications for the development of the profession within each context and for the morale of each music therapy community. Overall, this special feature aims to promote a spirit of open dialogue and mutual respect. It is underpinned by a commitment to remain in ongoing dialogue while accepting that we can agree to disagree. As editors we tried to remain true to this commitment, and this became particularly evident in cases where reported practices and concepts were at odds with our own perspectives and understandings of music therapy and its development as a contemporary profession and discipline in Western countries. Indeed, the perspectives presented in some of the reports may sit on the edge or even outside the ‘professional canon’ of music therapy as developed in many contemporary Western countries. In line with the vision of Approaches, this special feature opens up a space where local-global tensions can be voiced (Ridder & Tsiris, 2015b), allowing multiple translations, transitions and borders to be explored. What becomes evident is that definitions of music therapy are inextricably linked to cultural, including spiritual and political, meanings and practices of music, health and illness. Mediterranean people are known for their hospitality but also for their passionate temperament. We hope that this special feature creates a hospitable and welcoming environment for professional and intercultural exchange where passion can fuel creative action and collaboration instead of conflict. We invite the readers to engage with each report in this spirit of openness and reflexivity. This special feature will hopefully be only the start of future dialogue, debate and constructive critique. To this end, we also invite people to add their voices and perspectives regarding music therapy in the Mediterranean region in relation to dementia and end-of-life care. Music therapists, palliative care practitioners and other professionals are welcome to submit their own papers in the form of articles, reports or letters to the editor. References AMPA (2016). Alzheimer and the Mediterranean Report 2016: Overview – challenges – perspectives. Retrieved from https://ampa-monaco.com/files/MAA_Rapport_GB_web_sml.pdf De Backer, J., Nöcker Ribaupierre, M., & Sutton, J. (2013). Music therapy in Europe: The identity and professionalisation of European music therapy, with an overview and history of the European Music Therapy Confederation. In J. De Backer & J. Sutton (Eds.), The music in music therapy: Psychodynamic music therapy in Europe: Clinical, theoretical and research approaches (pp. 24-36). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Dileo-Maranto, C. (Ed.). (1993). Music therapy: International perspectives. Saint Louis, MI: MMB Music, Inc. Fadhil, I., Lyons, G., & Payne, S. (2017). Barriers to, and opportunities for, palliative care development in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. The Lancet Oncology, 18(3), e176-e184. Froggatt, K., Payne, S., Morbey, H., Edwards, M., Finne-Soveri, H., Gambassi, G., Pasman, H. R., Szczerbinska, K., & Van den Block, L. (2017). Palliative care development in European care homes and nursing homes: Application of a typology of implementation. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 18(6), 550.e7-550.e14. Hesser, B., & Heinemann, H. (Eds.). (2015). Music as a global resource: Solutions for social and economic issues (4th ed.). New York, NY: United Nations Headquarters. Mercadal-Brotons, M., Sabbatella, P. L., & Del Moral Marcos, M. T. (2017). Music therapy as a profession in Spain: Past, present and future. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 9(1), 111-119. Retrieved from https://approaches.gr/mercadal-brotons-a20150509 Osman, H., Rihan, A., Garralda, E., Rhee, J.Y., Pons, J.J., de Lima, L., Tfayli, A., & Centeno, C. (2017). Atlas of palliative care in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Houston: IAHPC Press. Retrieved from https://dadun.unav.edu/handle/10171/43303 Ridder, H. M., & Tsiris, G. (Eds.). (2015a). Special issue on ‘Music therapy in Europe: Paths of professional development’. Approaches: Music Therapy & Special Music Education, Special Issue 7(1). Retrieved from https://approaches.gr/special-issue-7-1-2015/ Ridder, H. M., & Tsiris, G. (2015b). ‘Thinking globally, acting locally’: Music therapy in Europe. Approaches: Music Therapy & Special Music Education, Special Issue 7(1), 3-9. Retrieved from https://approaches.gr/special-issue-7-1-2015/ Scarlata, E. (2015). Italy. Approaches: Music Therapy & Special Music Education, Special Issue 7(1), 161-162. Retrieved from https://approaches.gr/special-issue-7-1-2015 Schmid, J. (2014). Music therapy training courses in Europe. Thesis at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria. Stegemann, T., Schmidt, H. U., Fitzthum, E., & Timmermann, T. (Eds.). (2016). Music therapy training programmes in Europe: Theme and variations. Reichert Verlag. Tsiris, G. (2011). Music therapy in Greece. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved from https://voices.no/community/?q=country-of-the-month/2011-music-therapy-greece World Health Organization (WHO) (2020). Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean Countries. Retrieved from: http://www.emro.who.int/countries.html

For seven months in 1999/2000, six-year old Cuban Elián González was embroiled in a family feud plotted along rival national and ideological lines, and relayed televisually as soap opera across the planet. In Miami, apparitions of the Virgin Mary were reported after Elián’s arrival; adherents of Afro-Cuban santería similarly regarded Elián as divinely touched. In Cuba, Elián’s “kidnapping” briefly reinvigorated a torpid revolutionary project. He was hailed by Fidel Castro as the symbolic descendant of José Martí and Che Guevara, and of the patriotic rigour they embodied. Cubans massed to demand his return. In the U.S.A., Elián’s case was arbitrated at every level of the juridical system. The “Save Elián” campaign generated widespread debate about godless versus godly family values, the contours of the American Dream, and consumerist excess. By the end of 2000 Elián had generated the second largest volume of TV news coverage to that date in U.S. history, surpassed only by the O. J. Simpson case (Fasulo). After Fidel Castro, and perhaps the geriatric music ensemble manufactured by Ry Cooder, the Buena Vista Social Club, Elián became the most famous Cuban of our era. Elián also emerged as the unlikeliest of popular-cultural icons, the focus and subject of cyber-sites, books, films, talk-back radio programs, art exhibits, murals, statues, documentaries, a South Park episode, poetry, songs, t-shirts, posters, newspaper editorials in dozens of languages, demonstrations, speeches, political cartoons, letters, legal writs, U.S. Congress records, opinion polls, prayers, and, on both sides of the Florida Strait, museums consecrated in his memory. Confronted by Elián’s extraordinary renown and historical impact, John Carlos Rowe suggests that the Elián story confirms the need for a post-national and transdisciplinary American Studies, one whose practitioners “will have to be attentive to the strange intersections of politics, law, mass media, popular folklore, literary rhetoric, history, and economics that allow such events to be understood.” (204). I share Rowe’s reading of Elián’s story and the clear challenges it presents to analysis of “America,” to which I would add “Cuba” as well. But Elián’s story is also significant for the ways it challenges critical understandings of fame and its construction. No longer, to paraphrase Leo Braudy (566), definable as an accidental hostage of the mass-mediated eye, Elián’s fame has no certain relation to the child at its discursive centre. Elián’s story is not about an individuated, conscious, performing, desiring, and ambivalently rewarded ego. Elián was never what P. David Marshall calls “part of the public sphere, essentially an actor or, … a player” in it (19). The living/breathing Elián is absent from what I call the virtualizing drives that famously reproduced him. As a result of this virtualization, while one Elián now attends school in Cuba, many other Eliáns continue to populate myriad popular-cultural texts and to proliferate away from the states that tried to contain him. According to Jerry Everard, “States are above all cultural artefacts” that emerge, virtually, “as information produced by and through practices of signification,” as bits, bites, networks, and flows (7). All of us, he claims, reside in “virtual states,” in “legal fictions” based on the elusive and contested capacity to generate national identities in an imaginary bounded space (152). Cuba, the origin of Elián, is a virtual case in point. To augment Nicole Stenger’s definition of cyberspace, Cuba, like “Cyberspace, is like Oz — it is, we get there, but it has no location” (53). As a no-place, Cuba emerges in signifying terms as an illusion with the potential to produce and host Cubanness, as well as rival ideals of nation that can be accessed intact, at will, and ready for ideological deployment. Crude dichotomies of antagonism — Cuba/U.S.A., home/exile, democracy/communism, freedom/tyranny, North/South, godlessness/blessedness, consumption/want — characterize the hegemonic struggle over the Cuban nowhere. Split and splintered, hypersensitive and labyrinthine, guarded and hysterical, and always active elsewhere, the Cuban cultural artefact — an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56) — very much conforms to the logics that guide the appeal, and danger, of cyberspace. Cuba occupies an inexhaustible “ontological time … that can be reintegrated at any time” (Stenger 55), but it is always haunted by the prospect of ontological stalling and proliferation. The cyber-like struggle over reintegration, of course, evokes the Elián González affair, which began on 25 November 1999, when five-year old Elián set foot on U.S. soil, and ended on 28 June 2000, when Elián, age six, returned to Cuba with his father. Elián left one Cuba and found himself in another Cuba, in the U.S.A., each national claimant asserting virtuously that its other was a no-place and therefore illegitimate. For many exiles, Elián’s arrival in Miami confirmed that Castro’s Cuba is on the point of collapse and hence on the virtual verge of reintegration into the democratic fold as determined by the true upholders of the nation, the exile community. It was also argued that Elián’s biological father could never be the boy’s true father because he was a mere emasculated puppet of Castro himself. The Cuban state, then, had forfeited its claims to generate and host Cubanness. Succoured by this logic, the “Save Elián” campaign began, with organizations like the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) bankrolling protests, leaflet and poster production, and official “Elián” websites, providing financial assistance to and arranging employment for some of Elián’s Miami relatives, lobbying the U.S. Congress and the Florida legislature, and contributing funds to the legal challenges on behalf of Elián at state and federal levels. (Founded in 1981, the CANF is the largest and most powerful Cuban exile organization, and one that regards itself as the virtual government-in-waiting. CANF emerged with the backing of the Reagan administration and the C.I.A. as a “private sector initiative” to support U.S. efforts against its long-time ideological adversary across the Florida Strait [Arboleya 224-5].) While the “Save Elián” campaign failed, the result of a Cuban American misreading of public opinion and overestimation of the community’s lobbying power with the Clinton administration, the struggle continues in cyberspace. CANF.net.org registers its central role in this intense period with silence; but many of the “Save Elián” websites constructed after November 1999 continue to function as sad memento moris of Elián’s shipwreck in U.S. virtual space. (The CANF website does provide links to articles and opinion pieces about Elián from the U.S. media, but its own editorializing on the Elián affair has disappeared. Two keys to this silence were the election of George W. Bush, and the events of 11 Sep. 2001, which have enabled a revision of the Elián saga as a mere temporary setback on the Cuban-exile historical horizon. Indeed, since 9/11, the CANF website has altered the terms of its campaign against Castro, posting photos of Castro with Arab leaders and implicating him in a world-wide web of terrorism. Elián’s return to Cuba may thus be viewed retrospectively as an act that galvanized Cuban-exile support for the Republican Party and their disdain for the Democratic rival, and this support became pivotal in the Republican electoral victory in Florida and in the U.S.A. as a whole.) For many months after Elián’s return to Cuba, the official Liberty for Elián site, established in April 2000, was urging visitors to make a donation, volunteer for the Save Elián taskforce, send email petitions, and “invite a friend to help Elián.” (Since I last accessed “Liberty for Elián” in March 2004 it has become a gambling site.) Another site, Elian’s Home Page, still implores visitors to pray for Elián. Some of the links no longer function, and imperatives to “Click here” lead to that dead zone called “URL not found on this server.” A similar stalling of the exile aspirations invested in Elián is evident on most remaining Elián websites, official and unofficial, the latter including The Sad Saga of Elian Gonzalez, which exhorts “Cuban Exiles! Now You Can Save Elián!” In these sites, a U.S. resident Elián lives on as an archival curiosity, a sign of pathos, and a reminder of what was, for a time, a Cuban-exile PR disaster. If such cybersites confirm the shipwrecked coordinates of Elián’s fame, the “Save Elián” campaign also provided a focus for unrestrained criticism of the Cuban exile community’s imbrication in U.S. foreign policy initiatives and its embrace of American Dream logics. Within weeks of Elián’s arrival in Florida, cyberspace was hosting myriad Eliáns on sites unbeholden to Cuban-U.S. antagonisms, thus consolidating Elián’s function as a disputed icon of virtualized celebrity and focus for parody. A sense of this carnivalesque proliferation can be gained from the many doctored versions of the now iconic photograph of Elián’s seizure by the INS. Still posted, the jpegs and flashes — Elián and Michael Jackson, Elián and Homer Simpson, Elián and Darth Vader, among others (these and other doctored versions are archived on Hypercenter.com) — confirm the extraordinary domestication of Elián in local pop-cultural terms that also resonate as parodies of U.S. consumerist and voyeuristic excess. Indeed, the parodic responses to Elián’s fame set the virtual tone in cyberspace where ostensibly serious sites can themselves be approached as send ups. One example is Lois Rodden’s Astrodatabank, which, since early 2000, has asked visitors to assist in interpreting Elián’s astrological chart in order to confirm whether or not he will remain in the U.S.A. To this end the site provides Elián’s astro-biography and birth chart — a Sagittarius with a Virgo moon, Elián’s planetary alignments form a bucket — and conveys such information as “To the people of Little Havana [Miami], Elian has achieved mystical status as a ‘miracle child.’” (An aside: Elián and I share the same birthday.) Elián’s virtual reputation for divinely sanctioned “blessedness” within a Cuban exile-meets-American Dream typology provided Tom Tomorrow with the target in his 31 January 2000, cartoon, This Modern World, on Salon.com. Here, six-year old Arkansas resident Allen Consalis loses his mother on the New York subway. His relatives decide to take care of him since “New York has much more to offer him than Arkansas! I mean get real!” A custody battle ensues in which Allan’s heavily Arkansas-accented father requires translation, and the case inspires heated debate: “can we really condemn him to a life in Arkansas?” The cartoon ends with the relatives tempting Allan with the delights offered by the Disney Store, a sign of Elián’s contested insertion into an American Dreamscape that not only promises an endless supply of consumer goods but provides a purportedly safe venue for the alternative Cuban nation. The illusory virtuality of that nation also animates a futuristic scenario, written in Spanish by Camilo Hernández, and circulated via email in May 2000. In this text, Elián sparks a corporate battle between Firestone and Goodyear to claim credit for his inner-tubed survival. Cuban Americans regard Elián as the Messiah come to lead them to the promised land. His ability to walk on water is scientifically tested: he sinks and has to be rescued again. In the ensuing custody battle, Cuban state-run demonstrations allow mothers of lesbians and of children who fail maths to have their say on Elián. Andrew Lloyd Weber wins awards for “Elián the Musical,” and for the film version, Madonna plays the role of the dolphin that saved Elián. Laws are enacted to punish people who mispronounce “Elián” but these do not help Elián’s family. All legal avenues exhausted, the entire exile community moves to Canada, and then to North Dakota where a full-scale replica of Cuba has been built. Visa problems spark another migration; the exiles are welcomed by Israel, thus inspiring a new Intifada that impels their return to the U.S.A. Things settle down by 2014, when Elián, his wife and daughter celebrate his 21st birthday as guests of the Kennedys. The text ends in 2062, when the great-great-grandson of Ry Cooder encounters an elderly Elián in Wyoming, thus providing Elián with his second fifteen minutes of fame. Hernández’s text confirms the impatience with which the Cuban-exile community was regarded by other U.S. Latino sectors, and exemplifies the loss of control over Elián experienced by both sides in the righteous Cuban “moral crusade” to save or repatriate Elián (Fernández xv). (Many Chicanos, for example, were angered at Cuban-exile arguments that Elián should remain in the U.S.A. when, in 1999 alone, 8,000 Mexican children were repatriated to Mexico (Ramos 126), statistical confirmation of the favored status that Cubans enjoy, and Mexicans do not, vis-à-vis U.S. immigration policy. Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon and Camilo Hernández’s email text are part of what I call the “What-if?” sub-genre of Elián representations. Another example is “If Elián Gonzalez was Jewish,” archived on Lori’s Mishmash Humor page, in which Eliat Ginsburg is rescued after floating on a giant matzoh in the Florida Strait, and his Florida relatives fight to prevent his return to Israel, where “he had no freedom, no rights, no tennis lessons”.) Nonetheless, that “moral crusade” has continued in the Cuban state. During the custody battle, Elián was virtualized into a hero of national sovereignty, an embodied fix for a revolutionary project in strain due to the U.S. embargo, the collapse of Soviet socialism, and the symbolic threat posed by the virtual Cuban nation-in-waiting in Florida. Indeed, for the Castro regime, the exile wing of the national family is virtual precisely because it conveniently overlooks two facts: the continued survival of the Cuban state itself; and the exile community’s forty-plus-year slide into permanent U.S. residency as one migrant sector among many. Such rhetoric has not faded since Elián’s return. On December 5, 2003, Castro visited Cárdenas for Elián’s tenth birthday celebration and a quick tour of the Museo a la batalla de ideas (Museum for the Battle of Ideas), the museum dedicated to Elián’s “victory” over U.S. imperialism and opened by Castro on July 14, 2001. At Elián’s school Castro gave a speech in which he recalled the struggle to save “that little boy, whose absence caused everyone, and the whole people of Cuba, so much sorrow and such determination to struggle.” The conflation of Cuban state rhetoric and an Elián mnemonic in Cárdenas is repeated in Havana’s “Plaza de Elián,” or more formally Tribuna Anti-imperialista José Martí, where a statue of José Martí, the nineteenth-century Cuban nationalist, holds Elián in his arms while pointing to Florida. Meanwhile, in Little Havana, Miami, a sun-faded set of photographs and hand-painted signs, which insist God will save Elián yet, hang along the front fence of the house — now also a museum and site of pilgrimage — where Elián once lived in a state of siege. While Elián’s centrality in a struggle between virtuality and virtue continues on both sides of the Florida Strait, the Cuban nowhere could not contain Elián. During his U.S. sojourn many commentators noted that his travails were relayed in serial fashion to an international audience that also claimed intimate knowledge of the boy. Coming after the O.J. Simpson saga and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the Elián story confirmed journalist Rick Kushman’s identification of a ceaseless, restless U.S. media attention shift from one story to the next, generating an “übercoverage” that engulfs the country “in mini-hysteria” (Calvert 107). But In Elián’s case, the voyeuristic media-machine attained unprecedented intensity because it met and worked with the virtualities of the Cuban nowhere, part of it in the U.S.A. Thus, a transnational surfeit of Elián-narrative options was guaranteed for participants, audiences and commentators alike, wherever they resided. In Cuba, Elián was hailed as the child-hero of the Revolution. In Miami he was a savior sent by God, the proof supplied by the dolphins that saved him from sharks, and the Virgins who appeared in Little Havana after his arrival (De La Torre 3-5). Along the U.S.A.-Mexico border in 2000, Elián’s name was given to hundreds of Mexican babies whose parents thought the gesture would guarantee their sons a U.S. future. Day by day, Elián’s story was propelled across the globe by melodramatic plot devices familiar to viewers of soap opera: doubtful paternities; familial crimes; identity secrets and their revelation; conflicts of good over evil; the reuniting of long-lost relatives; and the operations of chance and its attendant “hand of Destiny, arcane and vaguely supernatural, transcending probability of doubt” (Welsh 22). Those devices were also favored by the amateur author, whose narratives confirm that the delirious parameters of cyberspace are easily matched in the worldly text. In Michael John’s self-published “history,” Betrayal of Elian Gonzalez, Elián is cast as the victim of a conspiracy traceable back to the hydra-headed monster of Castro-Clinton and the world media: “Elian’s case was MANIPULATED to achieve THEIR OVER-ALL AGENDA. Only time will bear that out” (143). His book is now out of print, and the last time I looked (August 2004) one copy was being offered on Amazon.com for US$186.30 (original price, $9.95). Guyana-born, Canadian-resident Frank Senauth’s eccentric novel, A Cry for Help: The Fantastic Adventures of Elian Gonzalez, joins his other ventures into vanity publishing: To Save the Titanic from Disaster I and II; To Save Flight 608 From Disaster; A Wish to Die – A Will to Live; A Time to Live, A Time to Die; and A Day of Terror: The Sagas of 11th September, 2001. In A Cry for Help, Rachel, a white witch and student of writing, travels back in time in order to save Elián’s mother and her fellow travelers from drowning in the Florida Strait. As Senauth says, “I was only able to write this dramatic story because of my gift for seeing things as they really are and sharing my mystic imagination with you the public” (25). As such texts confirm, Elián González is an aberrant addition to the traditional U.S.-sponsored celebrity roll-call. He had no ontological capacity to take advantage of, intervene in, comment on, or be known outside, the parallel narrative universe into which he was cast and remade. He was cast adrift as a mere proper name that impelled numerous authors to supply the boy with the biography he purportedly lacked. Resident of an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56), Elián was battled over by virtualized national rivals, mass-mediated, and laid bare for endless signification. Even before his return to Cuba, one commentator noted that Elián had been consumed, denied corporeality, and condemned to “live out his life in hyper-space” (Buzachero). That space includes the infamous episode of South Park from May 2000, in which Kenny, simulating Elián, is killed off as per the show’s episodic protocols. Symptomatic of Elián’s narrative dispersal, the Kenny-Elián simulation keeps on living and dying whenever the episode is re-broadcast on TV sets across the world. Appropriated and relocated to strange and estranging narrative terrain, one Elián now lives out his multiple existences in the Cuban-U.S. “atmosphere in history,” and the Elián icon continues to proliferate virtually anywhere. References Arboleya, Jesús. The Cuban Counter-Revolution. Trans. Rafael Betancourt. Research in International Studies, Latin America Series no. 33. Athens, OH: Ohio Center for International Studies, 2000. Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Buzachero, Chris. “Elian Gonzalez in Hyper-Space.” Ctheory.net 24 May 2000. 19 Aug. 2004: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=222>. Calvert, Clay. Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture. Boulder: Westview, 2000. 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Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2000. Stenger, Nicole. “Mind Is a Leaking Rainbow.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1991. 49-58. Welsh, Alexander. George Eliot and Blackmail. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Allatson, Paul. "The Virtualization of Elián González." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>. APA Style Allatson, P. (Nov. 2004) "The Virtualization of Elián González," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>.