War on Gaza relived on stage

AlJazeera, March 18, 2009

While Palestinian leaders have been edging towards reconciliation, their people are still trying to cope with the aftermath of the Israeli offensive on Gaza which killed more than 1,300 people.

Now, actors in the West Bank have taken the story of the war to tell their leaders to unite.

Nour Odeh reports on a unique piece of theatre.

Fernando Botero’s “Abu Ghraib” – A Conversation with the Artist

University of California, Berkeley, August 21, 2007

Fernando Botero, Artist in conversation with Robert Hass, Professor of English, UC Berkeley, Poet Laureate of the United States (1995-1997).

Fernando Botero, the most famous living Latin American artist, will display his Abu Ghraib paintings at the University of California, Berkeley. These 47 paintings and drawings belong to a long tradition of artistic statements against war and violence that include Goya’s Caprichos and Picasso’s Guernica.

Organized by the Center for Latin American Studies, these paintings have never been displayed in a public institution in the United States. The exhibit was “proposed to many museums in the U.S,” according to the artist, but all declined to show it.

“The Politics of the Veil”: Conversation with Joan Wallach Scott

Conversation with History, University of California, Berkeley

Recorded February 26, 2009

“The Politics of the Veil”, Joan Wallach Scott, Professor in the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian Joan Wallach Scott who traces her intellectual odyssey and recalls the impact of the women’s movement on her research and teaching. Professor Scott also describes the intellectual influences that led her, more than twenty years ago, to write the now classic article, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical analysis.” The conversation continues with a a discussion of the utility of critical history for elucidaing contemporary policy debates. This part of the discussion focuses on her recent book “The Politics of the Veil,” an analysis of the political, cultural, and social factors that led to the French ban on the wearing of the veil by Muslim young women in public schools.