Michael Toler After three days of conferencing, the Legation's fountains and birds are again audible in the relative calm of the medina. Not that we're complaining: a better group of participants couldn't be found. We have just hosted an illustrious group of experts on Berber Societies, the theme of this year's AIMS – American Institute for Maghrib … Read more Berber Societies: AIMS Conference 2012 at TALIM
For the past 62 years, there has been an American campus in this city – the American School of Tangier (AST), the first such school in Morocco, offering classes K-12. Now, with the announcement by UNE – Maine's University of New England – of plans to establish a presence at AST, there will be a … Read more An American Campus in Tangier
House Bunting (Emberiza sahari), American Legation Tangier (photo by Christiane Delongueville) Last year, when I wrote about "wildlife" in the medina, I neglected a whole class of the animal kingdom: birds. How could I? They are by far the most ubiquitous creatures in this mostly treeless part of the city. We're not really bird watchers, … Read more Buntings on the Balcony
The personnel of the American Legation must have been as excited as the rest of Tangier on April 5, 1928. The swimmer herself would have been out of sight, a tiny figure among the waves and treacherous currents of the Strait of Gibraltar, though her flotilla of witnesses, onlookers, and supporters may have been visible. … Read more First Across the Strait: Mercedes Gleitze 1928
Well, it wasn't really an exhibit, but rather a film of an artist and her exhibit. The artist is Carla Querejeta Roca, a Spanish Tangeroise (or perhaps Tangerina) whose family has strong roots in this city on the Strait of Gibraltar. The filmmaker is Jean-Claude Sussfeld, who has begun to explore Tangier subjects. The exhibit … Read more Instant Art Exhibit: Carla Querejeta Roca
Tangier is home to Morocco's leading institute of higher education in tourism, ISITT, of the Ministry of Tourism. Now in its 40th year, ISITT has an alumni list of thousands, many of whom have made careers in tourism, Morocco's most important source of foreign exchange. Invited to make a presentation on the Legation at ISITT's … Read more Culture, Tourism, and Cultural Tourism
This week marked the 70th anniversary of the creation of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, barely six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. OSS Society President Charles Pinck has penned this article in the Tampa Tribune, "General Donovan's Glorious Amateurs," whose title provides a glimpse of the kind of recruits Donovan gathered … Read more OSS Diplomatic Courier Gordon Browne’s Fateful Pouch Run
Dorothy Weems as her mother, Ruth Wolfe Weems “I was the youngest member of the Legation, the one most newly arrived from America…” There’s a touch of Isak Dinesen’s wistful remembrance of Africa in Ruth Wolfe Weems’ writing on her years in Tangier. A bit of the postwar sense of loss after the adventures, the … Read more Reliving Forties Tangier with Ruth Wolfe Weems
How appropriate to launch The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia: Performance Traditions of the Maghreb, a scholarly work by Khalid Amine and Marvin Carlson, at the Tangier American Legation. Why? Well, for one thing, the Legation property once housed a theatre. "The Theatre Parcel" is noted on historic documents tracing the Legation's growth over … Read more Focus on Theatre in the Maghreb
The Legation is becoming the venue of choice for book presentations, especially books in English or with a connection to the United States. We have done several over the past couple of years, and have two scheduled this week. In partnership with Tangier's premier bookstore Librairie des Colonnes, we feature a book by an American … Read more An American Designs the Moroccan Dream: Bill Willis
