Washington MESA literary exhibit brings memories from the past to present

The recent annual conference in Washington for the Middle East Studies Association, an exhibit of books, art, and culture, brought memories and ideas from the past into the present.

From orally passed-down tales put into print to using high-tech to preserve ancient manuscripts to modern designs in the traditional art of calligraphy, the exhibit at the late November conference showed the region’s links between the past and the present.

Andrea Stumpf was one of the many authors who attended the event. She is the great-great-granddaughter of Sayyida Salme, an Omani woman who later lived in Germany, who wrote a book about her life as a woman in the historic sultanate, touching upon topics of racism and sexism.

"In a very intentional way, I’m trying to rescue her voice," Stumpf told The New Arab, referring to past translations of her great-great-grandmother’s work (from German) that she believes needed more work to stay true to the original.

"I’m trying to replace those translations and also make it more readable for a twenty-first century audience," she said. "I discovered that the translation was almost like a puzzle."

At a nearby table, Ozan Ceyhan was exhibiting a Turkish artificial intelligence solution to understanding historic and financial texts, mainly from the Balkans and North Africa, which he describes as neglected parts of understanding the Ottoman Empire.

Also present at the exhibition, Nihad Dukhan displayed images of his calligraphy – bold and simple lines, mainly focused on one word per frame.

"I have a modern take on the art of Arabic calligraphy," Dukhan, who also teaches mechanical engineering, told The New Arab.

"I usually focus on single words so that we can bypass the language requirement. Simplicity is hard to come by," he explained.

Dukhan began the art of calligraphy in his native Gaza, then trained with a master in Istanbul, and now trains in northern Virginia, continuing to study calligraphy today.

Hope LeGro, with Georgetown University Press, publisher of Al-Kitaab series, exhibited books for all levels of Arabic language learning, including short stories and idiomatic dictionaries. They are now publishing books in Tamazight.

Other displays focused on books based on academic research, efforts to bridge scholarship with everyday readers.