François Beaune wants your (true) story. Your Mediterranean story, in whatever language (French, Arabic, Hebrew, English, Spanish… the Med is a melting pot of languages too) you choose. And though the invitation is open – "I believe in copyleft, and want stories to be shared" – there are some conditions for submissions. Inspired … Read more Copyleft Your True Story: Histoires Vraies de Méditerranée
Foreignization, domestication, transmutation… Karima Bouziane has mastered the vocabulary of her topic. At today's presentation at TALIM, the audience caught on immediately to this specialized world of semiotics, which has to do with the study of signs and communication. The capacity audience (09:00 on a Friday morning – a major feat!) was composed largely … Read more Domesticating Foreign Ads or Translating the Maghreb
Poster adapted by Serena Epstein, American School of Tangier As we walked, I showed Tennessee the Arabic translation of his play, and explained that the title in Arabic meant: A Cat On the Fire. Mohamed Choukri, Tennessee Williams in Tangier (1979, Cadmus Editions, translated by Paul Bowles) Choukri's little book recounts one of the playwright's … Read more Tennessee Williams’ A Cat On The Fire
"To provide outstanding young military leaders an unsurpassed opportunity to achieve fluency in a foreign language, pursue graduate study at an overseas university, and acquire an in depth understanding of foreign cultures, thereby further equipping them to serve in positions of great responsibility as senior leaders in the United States Armed Forces." The Olmstead Scholarship … Read more Deep Education: Olmstead Scholars Learn More Than Arabic
From "Précipitations Annuelles," dry month map inset at TALIM research library, from the colonial era Institut Scientifique Chérifien The Scientific American picked up Reuters' article from today "Morocco prays for rain for first time since 2007." Now, I don't think that my prayers for dry weather last fall, when the Embassy contractor started our latest … Read more Let It Rain, On Morocco
To our usual languages in the little "card" above, we wanted to add a New Year's greeting in Tamazight, also known as Amazigh or Berber. But we couldn't find it in tifinagh, the Berber alphabet. The world's most complete list of holiday greetings has just included (with our prompting) an entry for the language spoken … Read more 2011 to 2012: Another TALIM Transition
For the last couple of months, settle into a Royal Air Maroc airplane seat, reach for the inflight magazine, and you'll see the cover story – the Museums of Tangier. Featuring, along with our friends the Kasbah Museum, the Tangier American Legation (TALIM) museum. We are thrilled that RAM, with its six million passengers per … Read more Read All About It: Legation & the Press
Our little Christmas road trip wound up yesterday. We left 8th century Moulay Idriss (photo above, nestled in the hills framed by Roman Volubilis) and struck almost due north, through Ouezzane and into the Rif Mountains. Ouezzane, perhaps best known here through the family of the Cherif of Ouezzane and his turn-of-the-century (19th-20th) "British Bride … Read more A Bridge Over Morocco’s Colonial Past
Bordj Nord in fog, Christmas Eve Fez, 2011 "Christmas in Fez!" was already taken as the title to a blog post by another American last year. In any case, for us it was Christmas Eve in Fez, and Christmas day at the Roman ruins of Volubilis, then on to Moulay Idriss, a sacred destination. Above, … Read more Moroccan Christmas in a Holy Town: Moulay Idriss
I know the print in the above image is a bit small (click on picture to enlarge in a pop-up screen). But what it represents is this: during a long three-week period, ending on 12 December, we had almost no "hits" on TALIM Director's Blog because jinns had taken it over. Our URL, or, in … Read more TALIM On the Digital Map
