Native Informant

The Native Informant & Other Stories is a collection of six short stories dealing with "unmentionable" aspects of Arab life in parts of the Arab world and in the West. Inspired by such modern writers as Alifa Rifaat, Nawal al-Sadawi, and Youssef Idris - authors who have, despite immeasurable odds, managed to emphasize subjects ranging from feminism to homosexuality in their works - these short stories attempt to further engage various social and political issues that remain, for the most part, largely ignored or silenced in modern Arabic literature. Most of the stories in The Native Informant & Other Stories operate on a dual level by addressing not only issues related to women, homosexuals, and victims of violence in southwest Asia, but also by examining the seemingly conflicting relationship between notions of Arabness, Islam, and the West. The collection thus aims at highlighting the plight of marginalized groups in Arab countries by broaching various issues on the social spectrum, ranging from religious intolerance, to the subjugation of women, to homophobia, to domestic violence, to Western and Eastern concepts of terrorism and neo/post coloniality, to the ethnic experience of being an Arab in the United States at a time when the media seems to be promulgating the negative stereotype of the Arab.

Native Informant is Leo Braudy's first book after his widely acclaimed and award-winning history of fame, The Frenzy of Renown. With a verve that breaks down the boundaries between film, literature, and popular culture, Braudy discusses writers and filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Daniel Defoe, Ernst Lubitsch, Emile Zola, Susan Sontag, and Richard Condon. His subjects include madness in the eighteenth century, the Hollywood blacklist, westerns, and pornography. Throughout this lively and insightful collection, his perspective is not that of the critic as a detached voice of professional authority but as a member of a particular culture--a native informant--whose gaze looks simultaneously inward and outward, subjective but self-aware. Like the wide-ranging Frenzy of Renown, Native Informant will appeal to specialist and interested reader alike.

"Illuminating the complex relationships between tribal informants and twentieth-century anthropologists such as Boas, Parker, and Fenton, who came to their communities to collect stories and artifacts"--Provided by publisher.

In the twenty years since Ray Land and Erik Meyer published their first paper on Threshold Concepts, there has been a steady stream of papers mulling over their original suggestions that learning, far from proceeding in an orderly fashion, is instead a process of struggle – perhaps alienation and confusion – that puts students in a troublesome liminal ‘in-between’ state. As their understanding develops, liminality gives way to transformational insight whereby a whole field of study comes, often quite abruptly, into focus. There is a gain but often also a loss: in this new world, old certainties, assumptions and even aspects of our identity can be left by the wayside. Threshold Concepts in the Moment is the sixth collection in the series on the subject of Threshold Concepts, following the 8th Biennial Conference held in 2021, anchored at London’s UCL but running online across the world. Its contributors, who range from ‘old hands’ to new members of the community finding their feet, mull over the insights of the threshold concepts framework in higher education, scrutinise their own fields of study, explore the implications of liminality for pedagogy and becoming professional practitioners, and consider the broad implications for pedagogy of factoring in the troublesomeness of knowledge and learning.

In this innovative collection, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from Australia and Europe reflect on how their life histories have impacted on their research in Indigenous Australian Studies. Drawing on Pierre Nora’s concept of ego-histoire as an analytical tool to ask historians to apply their methods to themselves, contributors lay open their paths, personal commitments and passion involved in their research. Why are we researching in Indigenous Studies, what has driven our motivations? How have our biographical experiences influenced our research? And how has our research influenced us in our political and individual understanding as scholars and human beings? This collection tries to answer many of these complex questions, seeing them not as merely personal issues but highly relevant to the practice of Indigenous Studies. I think this rich collection will become a landmark text and a favourite within Australian scholarship. I am keen to see it published so that I can recommend it to others — Professor Emerita Margaret Allen, Gender Studies and Social Analysis, University of Adelaide The idea was to explain the link between the history you have made and the history that has made you — Pierre Nora

This new Dictionary features a thoughtfully collated collection of over 150 jargon-free definitions of key terms and concepts in postcolonial theory. Features a brief introduction to postcolonial theory and a list of suggested further reading that includes the texts in which many of these terms originated Each entry includes the origins of the term, where traceable; a detailed explanation of its perceived meaning; and examples of the term’s use in literary-cultural texts Incorporates terms and concepts from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, science, economics, globalization studies, politics, and philosophy Provides an ideal companion text to the forthcoming Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology, which is also edited by Pramod K. Nayar, a highly-respected authority in the field

This volume introduces key concepts for a trans/national expansion in the study of culture. Using translation as an analytical category, it explores what is translatable and untranslatable between nation-specific approaches such as British/American cultural studies, German Kulturwissenschaften and other traditions in studying culture. The range of articles included in the book covers both theoretical reflections and specific case studies that analyze the tensions and compatibilities amongst contemporary perspectives on the study of culture. By testing various key concepts – translation, cultural transfer, travelling concepts – this volume reflects on an essential vocabulary and common points of reference for scholars seeking new frameworks and methodologies for the foundation of a trans/national study of culture that is commensurate with the entangled nature of our world society.

In the past few decades, the narrow intellectual foundations of the university have come under serious scrutiny. Previously marginalized groups have called for improved access to the institution and full inclusion in the curriculum. Reshaping the University is a timely, thorough, and original interrogation of academic practices. It moves beyond current analyses of cultural conflicts and discrimination in academic institutions to provide an indigenous postcolonial critique of the modern university. Rauna Kuokkanen argues that attempts by universities to be inclusive are unsuccessful because they do not embrace indigenous worldviews. Programs established to act as bridges between mainstream and indigenous cultures ignore their ontological and epistemic differences and, while offering support and assistance, place the responsibility of adapting wholly on the student. Indigenous students and staff are expected to leave behind their cultural perspectives and epistemes in order to adopt Western values. Reshaping the University advocates a radical shift in the approach to cultural conflicts within the academy and proposes a new logic, grounded in principles central to indigenous philosophies.