Tapestry as Tainted Medium: Charles V’s Conquest of Tunis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Houghteling
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
North African ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Charles V ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

In 1546, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V commissioned a tapestry series to commemorate his successful 1535 campaign against Sultan Suleiman I’s Ottoman forces in the North African trading city of Tunis. The Conquest of Tunis tapestries have been regarded as a metaphorical statement of Charles V’s role as the defender of Christendom against Ottoman encroachment. However, the history of their production undercuts any simplistic formulation of his empire, with the metal for threads arriving from the New World and silks procured from forcibly converted Muslim artisans in Granada. The seeming clarity of the tapestries’ meaning obscures the heterogeneity of Charles’s empire, as well as the tension, and potential for perceived contamination, between the materials and the iconography of the tapestry medium.

Introducing the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Karen Radner ◽  
Nadine Moeller ◽  
D. T. Potts
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
North African ◽  
Inter Tropical Convergence Zone ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues

With the emphasis of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East firmly placed on the political, social, and cultural histories of the states and communities shaping Egypt and Western Asia (including the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), this introduction to the five-volume series seeks to place the region in its environmental context. It discusses the lay of the land between the North African coast and the Hindu Kush, including the role of tectonics and geomorphology. It also considers some key issues regarding climatic conditions, focusing in particular on the significance of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone and the potential impact of megadroughts and pandemics.

New World News, Ancient Echoes: A Cortés Letter and a Vernacular Livy for a New King and His Wary Subjects (1520–23)*

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 711-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Wright
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Charles V ◽  
World News ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Immigrant ◽  
Print Shop ◽  
Hernan Cortes

Empire building converges with print innovations in the rare Zaragoza edition (1523) of the landmark “Second Letter from Mexico” of Hernán Cortés. The Aragonese print shop owned by German immigrant George Coçi advertised what, to its first interpreters, was stunning news from a still mysterious place overseas with woodblocks drawn from their 1520 edition of Livy'sHistory of Rome. An examination of the political, social, and editorial contexts that informed these two books addressed to Charles V casts light on concerns about how the new Spanish king would communicate with his subjects in an age of imperial expansion.

scholarly journals Evolutionary history of the two North African hedgehogs (Mammalia: Erinaceidae) Atelerix algirus and Paraechinus aethiopicus based on phylogeography and species distribution modelling

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 799-811
Author(s):  
Haithem El-Farhati ◽  
Mourad Khaldi ◽  
Alexis Ribas ◽  
Mohamed Wassim Hizem ◽  
Saïd Nouira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Species Distribution Modelling ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Climatic Suitability ◽  
North African ◽  
Niche Modelling ◽  
Distribution Modelling ◽  
The North ◽  
Low Genetic Diversity ◽  
History Of

Abstract Two species of hedgehogs are known to occur in northern part of Africa: the Algerian hedgehog Atelerix algirus and the Ethiopian hedgehog Paraechinus aethiopicus. Within each species several subspecies were described based on morphometrical data and pelage coloration, but all these subspecies have enigmatic and unclear definitions. We investigated the phylogeographical history and taxonomy of these two species based on mitochondrial DNA data covering the entire geographical distribution of A. algirus and the North African distribution of P. aethiopicus. We also used climatic niche modelling to make inferences about their evolutionary history. Low genetic diversity was recovered in both species. While no phylogeographic pattern was found in P. aethiopicus, two haplogroups were identified within A. algirus. This could be explained by the fact that continuous high or moderate climatic suitability occurred throughout most of the Saharan desert since the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) for the first species, while during the LGM there were several disconnected areas of high climatic suitability for A. algirus: one in South-West Morocco, one at the coastal Moroccan-Algerian border and one in Tunisia-coastal Libya. Our genetic results confirm that A. algirus recently colonized Spain, Balearic and Canary Islands, and that this colonization was probably mediated by humans. Suitable climatic conditions occurred throughout most of the Southern and Eastern Iberian Peninsula during the last 6,000 years which could have favored the spatial expansion of the Algerian hedgehog after its arrival in Europe. According to our molecular results subspecific recognition within North Africa is unwarranted for both species.

ELIZABETH SAVAGE, A Gateway to Hell, a Gateway to Paradise: The North African Response to the Arab Conquest, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, no. 7 (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1997). $35 cloth.

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-284
Author(s):  
Mahmood Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Umayyad Caliphate ◽  
The Way

It was only after Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan regained the Umayyad caliphate that concerted efforts were made to extend Umayyad sway into the Maghrib. These efforts turned into a wave of expansion that extended all the way into the 2nd century A.H./8th century A.D. and reached far into the Iberian Peninsula and across the Pyrenees. These efforts also constitute the history of the Maghrib, a history aptly described by the title of the book under review: A Gateway to Hell, a Gateway to Paradise. This title reflects the conflicted attitudes held by early Muslims regarding the region and its history. In the beginning, Umayyad policies were indeed contradictory. For example, Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber, could lead Muslims into the Iberian Peninsula, while up to a time Damascus considered Berbers legal booty.

Literary Debt

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (5) ◽  
pp. 1480-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Freedgood
Keyword(s):  
Book History ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Book Production ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
History Of

Postcolonial Publishing and Indigenous Publishing, like Hegel's Africa, are Often Imagined to be Without a History. Indeed, in A Companion to the History of the Book, published by Wiley Blackwell in 2009 and heralded by Adrian Johns as particularly exemplary in that the editors “take the term book in a broad sense to include not only codex volumes and scrolls, but also periodicals, ephemera, and even ancient Babylonian clay tablets” (Review of Companion 782), no region of the global South gets a chapter to itself, and Africa gets only two entries in the index: in a one-sentence remark about Middle Eastern and North African Islamic book production before 1100 and in a parenthetical reference to slavery in a chapter on libraries that mentions colonization. Johns himself has written a huge work on “the book”—that is, about early modern Britain (Nature). In David Finkelstein and Alistair MacCleery's recently reprinted An Introduction to Book History, “the book” is unapologetically introduced as a Western form: the introduction makes it clear that the topic of the volume is overwhelmingly “Western European traditions of social communication through writing …” (30). The definite article is fearless in book history and occludes the history and travels of the book elsewhere, reinstalling it, time after time, in the North Atlantic regions that seem to be its natural habitat.

scholarly journals Gnawa Confusion: The Fusion of Algeria’s Favorite French Band

Ethnologies ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-229
Author(s):  
Andrew Mark
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Life Story ◽  
North African ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Cultural Authenticity ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
French Music ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

Gnawa Diffusion was a successful musical group of first- and second-generation North African immigrants that achieved significant fame in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe during the last two decades. Based in France, though from Algeria, their politicized egalitarian message reached the world. Their musical skills, instrumentation, tastes and appeal to youth sounds, sentiments and meanings gave their globalized music a prominent place on the global stage. In their work Gnawa Diffusion addressed a panoply of political issues and sought to represent and reach their audience. Their greatest popularity came at the height and conclusion of the Algerian civil war. By parsing the meanings of the band’s name, this paper engages the events and cultures that informed Gnawa Diffusion, exploring the history of the Gnawa, the history of Algeria, and the relationships between France, North Africa and contemporary “French” music. Issues of cultural authenticity and representation are tightly layered within the band’s purposes and process of artistic production. Because Gnawa Diffusion was envisioned, organized and led by Amazigh Kateb Yassin, and because the band and media recognized him as the spokesperson and principal author for Gnawa Diffusion, Amazigh’s life story and words accompany this paper’s arguments and analysis. Through a selective sketch of the various musical consequences of the North African slave trade, the spread of Islam, the colonization of North Africa and the immigration of Algerians to France, we can begin to comprehend how these histories combined and harmonized through Gnawa Diffusion to form the new musical forms of a generation of people who seek to overcome their often divisive cultural heritage. In this case, the intent of the music challenges common notions of authenticity and thereby affirms it.

Eyewitness Narrativesand the Creation of the Beurette

2016 ◽  
pp. 121-161
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Kleppinger
Keyword(s):  
Visual Media ◽  
North African ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The North ◽  
Beur Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Community ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Significant Attention

Through the context of the rise of fears of Islamism after several high-profile terrorist attacks in France, this chapter considers the impact of discourses of violence against women in the North African community. After a brief history of the ‘veil affairs’ in France (1989-2003), the chapter focuses on two authors who received significant attention in the audio-visual media: Soraya Nini for her 1993 novel Ils disent que je suis une beurette and Samira Bellil for her 2002 memoir Dans l’enfer des tournantes. These texts, although different in literary genre and scope and published nearly a decade apart, were discussed in parallel terms: as voices of emancipated young women who support French institutions and call for more involvement and protection from state authorities against supposedly violent and barbaric young men. Through these conversations a new iteration of ‘beur literature’ was born, that of the ‘beurette’ (young woman) struggling to declare her independence and freedom from oppressive familial customs.

Justice in the World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This chapter turns to questions of justice and ends with a close reading of Sallust's Jugurtha (and to a lesser extent, his Catiline). Sallust organizes his history of Jugurtha's war against the Romans in the North African kingdom of Numidia around the themes of justice and corruption; he ends by abruptly cutting off the conclusion of his story, the execution of Jugurtha. It is argued that Sallust's withholding of judgment at the end of Jugurtha signifies the ways in which agents in the decaying republic withhold justice on a larger scale. The silence at the ending caps a narrative pattern of repetition and deferral, creating a fundamental dislocation of consequentiality, the notion of an essential relation between intention and action.

Notes on the genus Afropachyiulus Schubart, 1960 (Diplopoda: Julida: Julidae) with a description of a new species from Algeria and a redescription of A. comatus (Attems, 1899)

Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1872 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
NESRINE AKKARI ◽  
HENRIK ENGHOFF
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Material ◽  
A New Species ◽  
African Genus

The North African genus Afropachyiulus Schubart, 1960 is a poorly defined genus of the tribe Pachyiulini, the taxonomy of which is still obscure. In this paper we retrace the history of the genus Afropachyiulus, we describe A. mauriesi n. sp., from Algeria, and we redescribe the very similar A. comatus (Attems, 1899) from Tunisia based on type and new material.

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