Tangier American Legation Museum

Ceremony at the French Consulate Honors Moroccan and French Veterans

November 30, 2014November 12, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

Wreath at the French Consulate in honor of Moroccan and French who fought in WW I and II — Honoring Moroccan and French who fought in WW I and II

Des invités français, marocains, et autres se sont réunis ce mardi orageux pour commémorer le jour de l’Armistice au Consulat de France à Tanger. Des écoliers ont chanté les hymnes nationaux de la France et du Maroc, et une couronne de fleurs a été posée pour honorer ceux de Tanger – français et marocains – qui ont fait le sacrifice suprême pendant la Première et la Seconde Guerres mondiales (plus de 40.000 Marocains ont combattu pour la France pendant la Première Guerre mondiale). C’était un honneur d’être parmi les invités.

Books, Film, Music, TALIM

Enchantment On Sale through the New Year

November 12, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

If you are looking to get an early start on some Christmas shopping, you can do it and support TALIM by purchasing copies of Enchantment. Pictures from the Tangier American Legation Museum, by Diana Wylie, on sale for $14.99 (regularly $35) in our web store, powered by Amazon. All the proceeds from the sale of … Read more Enchantment On Sale through the New Year

TALIM, Tangier

Remembrance Sunday

November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 Leave a comment by John Davison

I was honored this morning to represent the Tangier American Legation at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony at historic Saint Andrews Church. British Ambassador Clive Alderton traveled from Rabat for the event, as did a military and police honor guard from Gibraltar. On Wednesday, the French Consul-General in Tangier will host a similar Armistice Day reception.

American Studies, Cultural Diplomacy, Events, Tangier

“Burroughs: The Tangier Letters” Brought to Life

November 8, 2014November 6, 2014 1 Comment by Michael Toler

Here are two photos from the November 3 performance of “Burroughs: The Tangier Letters” at the Espace Beckett. Performers Anne-James Chaton and Carolyn McDaniel gave readings in French and English of correspondence between William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. The letters ranged from ribald to hallucinogenic, mundane to shocking, and both performers movingly conveyed the wry genius of one of the 20th century’s most complex and controversial authors.

Education, Strait of Gibraltar, Tangier

Greg White Discusses “Tangier Metropole” with Professors & Researchers from Abdelmalek Essaadi U.

November 2, 2014October 29, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

(left to right): Iliass Khaddour, PHD Student civil engineering, Dr Abdessamad Bernoussi, Professor of Mathematics, John Davison, TALIM Director, Dr Greg White, Professor of Government, Hamadou Kamara, PHD Student Hydrology, Dr Mharef Amina, Professor of Hydrology, Dr Adil Alaoui, Professor of Civil Engineering, Yhtimad Bouziane, Associate Director TALIM

TALIM welcomed Smith College Professor of Government Gregory White to the Legation October 27 for an informal round table conversation with professors and researchers from Tangier’s Abdelmalek Essaadi University.

Participants engaged in lively exchanges about links between the environment and touristic and overall development of “Tangier Metropole,” an ambitious program to develop the Tangier region from Cap Spartel in the west to beyond the port of Tangier Med in the east.

Morocco, Museum, TALIM

Hassan El Glaoui at the Legation

November 2, 2014October 20, 2014 Leave a comment by John Davison

El Glaoui water colors in the McBey Gallery

Dear Friends of TALIM (Version française ci-dessous),

Some very exciting news. We have just transferred several paintings from one of Morocco’s most famous artists, Hassane El-Glaoui, from our library to our museum. Please visit us between Monday and Friday for an unforgettable opportunity to view many of this beloved artist’s works!

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Chers amis de TALIM,

Cultural Diplomacy, Historic Landmark, Museum, Research Center, TALIM

Circles: Meet the New Director

November 2, 2014July 15, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

Last Roll - 3 — Former Director Loftus opened the Legation to Zankat America

Thirty-one years ago last month, a group of sixty-plus Peace Corps trainees arrived in Rabat, following a nearly 24-hour trip from Philadelphia via Paris. It was already night as we drove in from the airport, and it was Ramadan. The streets were packed, but our bus eventually made its way to the Bulima Hotel in the center of Rabat. Unable to sleep, I wandered down Blvd Mohammed V to the medina, and entered a new world of sights, sounds and smells. Thus began my own “beautiful friendship” with Morocco.

After spending two years teaching English at Lycée Laymoune in Berkane (and also visiting the American Legation in 1984), I began a diplomatic career that took me from Guinea-Bissau to Singapore, Madagascar to Tunisia, Cairo to New York City, and finally Niger and New Delhi. Working subsequently for the United Nations also allowed me to work in lovely, lyrical Cape Verde. Now I’ve come full circle and will begin a new adventure as Director of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies.

Can’t Stop Curating

November 2, 2014June 26, 2014 2 Comments by Michael Toler

New “name cloud” exhibit listing literary & artistic friends of Paul Bowles who were drawn to Tangier

Can’t stop curating?

Well, I do have to stop – we’re getting on the ferry to Spain Friday morning! Friends have joked that I’ll still be at it tomorrow morning, mounting yet more exhibits while my wife waits in the car. Not true; I stopped this afternoon.

At the French Consulate’s 14 Juillet reception after we arrived in 2010, a Moroccan friend introduced me as the “nouveau conservateur” in what people in Tangier only knew then as the “Musée de l’Ancienne Légation Américaine.” I joked that I was no conservative… I was a Democrat!

But the point is that conservateur or curator was the way people thought of this position in this city. I thought that was a bit limiting – how about our research library? Our seminars? The Arabic literacy program? Etc. I also didn’t like that ancienne thing – made it sound like we were closed.

Morocco’s Music: Archives to Archnet

November 2, 2014June 26, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

His Majesty King Mohammed VI Paul Bowles Library of Congress Moroccan Music Collection Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies — His Majesty King Mohammed VI
Paul Bowles Library of Congress
Moroccan Music Collection
Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies

It was the only way I could think of to get the opus of Morocco’s traditional music, recorded in 1959 by Paul Bowles and digitized by TALIM in 2010, into the hands of King Mohammed VI: have a leather presentation case made, embossed with the TALIM logo and dedicated to His Majesty.

US Ambassador to Morocco Dwight Bush now has it, and will present it at an appropriate occasion. Morocco’s musical heritage will have been repatriated after more than fifty years in the vaults of the Library of Congress.

AIMS, Books, Interzone, Morocco, Research Center

Tangier: Guides and Gateways

December 9, 2014June 25, 2014 Leave a comment by Michael Toler

Cover by Robert McDonald, Tangier: The Golden Gateway (Tangier: Mediterranean American Press, 1952). Collection TALIM Research Library.

The following is a guest post by Emma Chubb, who made a presentation on her subject to a group of American, European, and Moroccan researchers and interested members of the public at TALIM on June 17. Emma Chubb is a doctoral candidate in art history at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois USA) and is a 2013-14 American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) fellow in Morocco.

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Guides and Gateways

I spent much of last fall reading through TALIM’s collection of guidebooks and tourism magazines published between the 1940s and 1970s. Perhaps it was because I too was a newcomer to Tangier, but these guides fascinated me. Some folded out like maps, mixing quirky tips for the European or American traveler to Tangier with black-and-white photographs and brightly colored illustrations.