Posted on

Singing Back to Wax: Early Arabic Recordings Revisited

By Yara Salahiddeen and Martin Stokes

All photo credit goes to Oxford Maqam

Close up moving image of a wax cylinder turning on a Thomas Edison phonograph.
A wax cylinder turning on a Thomas Edison phonograph

The sound recording industry blossomed in the Ottoman and Arab world at the turn of the twentieth century. Initially in the hands of entrepreneurs like the Blumenthal Brothers in Istanbul, British, French and German companies (like Gramophone, Pathé and Odeon) were soon to take over. Competition to sign the big stars – like Egyptian vocalist Yusuf al-Manyalawi (1847-1911) – heated up. Technology changed quickly, too. The earliest entrepreneurs had started with the wax cylinder phonograph, patented by Edison in 1887. Phonographs were a remarkable invention – portable, robust and, eventually, affordable. But the cylinders on which they recorded and played back sound were none of these things. They were hard to duplicate, fragile, and wore out quickly on repeated playing. By 1903, shellac disc recording began to take over. 

Continue reading “Singing Back to Wax: Early Arabic Recordings Revisited”
Posted on

The Community College Mission: How Inclusive Pedagogy Emerged from the 1947 Truman Report and the Open Door to Higher Education

By Layla Azmi Goushey

This piece is the first in our series on pedagogy, focused on themes of inclusivity and equity. The introduction to the series can be read here and pieces in the series will be linked in the introduction as we publish them.

I met for coffee with a friend, a retired English faculty colleague, a few years ago and after catching up on current events, we got onto the subject of our teaching methods.  She had taught at my campus for 36 years, and I occupied her previous office. I described a few of my approaches to inclusive pedagogy and expressed my interest in cutting edge theories of teaching and learning.  As we compared notes, I realized that my colleague had utilized many of my “cutting edge” approaches in the 1970s. “Yes, we tried that,” she thoughtfully said. I had mentioned my interest in encouraging students to write without self-criticism toward their “home” language or dialect, the natural way we all speak (and text). Writing is recursive. We can always seek feedback, self-edit, review, and revise.

A May 9, 1971 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explains the concept of the Open Door to Higher Education.

At first, I was discomfited as I mulled that my cutting edge method existed 45 years earlier, but then it occurred to me that my colleague was a trailblazer. I had inherited her and her colleagues’inclusive,  institutional framework. The ongoing conversation about inclusive pedagogy at my college was initiated by them. She had been at the forefront of one of the most transformational moments in education: The creation of the community college.

Continue reading “The Community College Mission: How Inclusive Pedagogy Emerged from the 1947 Truman Report and the Open Door to Higher Education”
Posted on

Archivy (n. ~ The discipline of archives) *: everything that’s already been said

by Sumayya Ahmed

I have hesitated to write this piece because, as I told the person who commissioned it, everything about the archive(s), archivists, and their tepid relationship with historians and humanities folk has already been said in academic articles, books, conferences, and in less diplomatic ways on social media. Perhaps the most succinct and well-presented perspective of archivy’s relationship with other academics is Caswell’s (2016) article,  “ ’The Archive’ Is Not an Archives: On Acknowledging the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies.” I would not be offended if you stopped reading this right here and just clicked on the link to that article now.

Caswell (2016) acknowledges in her article previous work on the topic by Lingel (2013), “This is not an archive” , who spoke about the limits of the archives as a metaphor especially when the theories are constructed “in ignorance of archival work.” Recently, Gibbons (2020) has written “Derrida in the Archival Multiverse” which begins with the important point all of our voices have grown hoarse repeating, “Archival theory did not start (nor end) with Derrida.” As Eastwood (2017) explained, archivists themselves “have long engaged in characterizing the nature of archives.”

Continue reading “Archivy (n. ~ The discipline of archives) *: everything that’s already been said”

Posted on

Blogs You Should Be Adding to Your Bookmarks

By N.A. Mansour

We recently tweeted out some of our favorite blogs to follow: we threw out a couple of names you probably know and some you might not have had the chance to follow. Then our followers (and some of the people we tagged) tweeted back at us some of their favorites (particular shout-outs to Rich Heffron, Hind Makki and M Lynx Qualey). Here it is, in list form, if you don’t follow us on Twitter. Please either comment bellow on your favorites, tweet at us, or email us at hazineblog@gmail.com and we’ll update the list as we go along!

(Updated October 2019)

Continue reading “Blogs You Should Be Adding to Your Bookmarks”