BY MAHEEN ZAHRA AND HELINA YGLETA

Una Chaudhuri is Professor of English and Drama at NYU and an affiliated faculty member at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is the author of No Man’s Stage: A Semiotic Study of Jean Genet’s Plays (1986) and the award-winning Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama (1997). Her current scholarly interests include ecocriticism and animal studies.

What are you currently reading?

I’m always reading several things at a time, from different areas of my interests. So I’ve always got some big scholarly book going, and I like to spend a lot of time with it. I’m also an avid reader of contemporary literature, so I’ve always got a novel going, or sometimes two novels, one of them a graphic novel. Another genre I love is biography, so I usually reading one of those at the same time. The novel I’m reading right now is Embassytown by China Miéville; it’s an exploration of the semiotics of language, but in a science fiction mode. Semiotics was an early interest of mine, and it’s great fun to suddenly find it treated so brilliantly in a science fiction context.

In terms of scholarly books, the book I’ve been spending a lot of time with recently is Deep History [by Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail], a collection of essays that lays out a new movement in historiography: ways of thinking about history that take into account the geological inheritance of our species and start history not from the time when you had written or artifactual records but when you had geophysical records, like fossils. It is a new way of thinking not only about history, but also about what it means to be human. I’m teaching a Core course [at NYU Abu Dhabi] this semester called “Becoming Human: Literature of Nature-Culture Borderlands.” The field I work in within literature is ecocriticism, and the course has to do with constructions and ideas about the human in relation to the non-human, including animals, landscapes, gods, machines, all those others. Right now, I’m particularly interested in configurations of the human in light of anthropogenic climate change: the fact that we are now realizing that—for the first time in human history—the weather is about us, and how that changes our understanding of human agency, and forces us to rethink the old distinction between natural history and cultural or human history.

Finally, I’m also reading the new biography of David Foster Wallace, the brilliant American novelist who tragically committed suicide a few years ago, very young. The biography’s entitled Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, and it’s deeply absorbing.

Where do you buy your books, and how do you select them?

In terms of contemporary literature, I have certain authors whom I follow. I read everything they write and I wait impatiently for their next book, which I always have pre-ordered on Amazon. My favorite writers are J. M. Coetzee, the Nobel Prize-winning South African writer; Philip Roth, the American novelist, and Ian McEwan, a British writer. I also love Barbara Kingsolver, Jonathan Frantzen, Dave Eggers, and Julian Barnes. I rely on Amazon’s “you might also be interested in…” gizmo, but periodically I also discover new passions in whole new areas and I become deeply involved in them. Most recently, this was graphic novels, which surprised me, because I’d always considered myself an exclusively verbal person, and not a visual person. I hate magazines because I find the pictures distracting and annoying, and even as a child I never read comic books. But I read one graphic novel that was so impressive and enjoyable that I started reading more, and then I took a course on the graphic novel at NYU and I fell in love with the form. The graphic novel that got me into it was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. Afterwards, I began to devour all the other greats: Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Alan Moore, Daniel Clowes.

Nowadays it’s so easy to find good things to read. If I’m interested in graphic novels, I can go online and find a list of “The 100 Best Graphic Novels” ever written! I usually buy books from Amazon for my Kindle, but I still love going to bookstores and browsing; now, bookstores have become so welcoming that you can sit and have coffee. In New York, I love the Strand – it’s like paradise for readers and it’s only a few blocks away from my house, so I spend a good part of my life in the Strand.

Do the authors you follow have some connections?

They do. I’m very drawn to philosophically oriented literature that also has an intense focus on the inner life and on the way in which our relationships to other people, to our work, and to the world shape our inner lives. The most philosophical of the novelists that I love is Coetzee. He exemplifies a deep belief of mine, which is that complex, interesting, important ideas have to be encountered in more than just abstract, intellectual ways. They have to be encountered in life situations, in the body and in everyday experience. In other words, I really do believe that experience is a great mode of philosophy, and the novelists who understand that write novels not just to tell stories but to think about life. These are the kinds of novelists I am drawn to.

Another element that the authors I follow share is that these writers are interested in what it is to be at a later stage of one’s life. They deal—not just with “old age,” but rather with that sense of lateness, the sense of how to manage the feelings that come with knowing that it’s not going to go on forever. The feelings can be of disappointment in one’s self, and regret about one’s choices in life: how does one manage those feelings, and what is the value that comes from exploring those feelings? I am at that stage in my life so I find those questions very resonant and enabling.

But I’m also fairly indiscriminate! I read anything that anyone recommends to me and I am a fairly fast reader. I read about four novels a week. One of my favorite things in life is to sit in a park or a café for an hour or two, reading a novel.

Are there any books that you read over and over again?

I read certain plays over and over again, and there are quite a few that I feel I partly live in—like I have a room in them! Caryl Churchill’s Far Away is one, as are many of Beckett’s plays, especially Waiting for Godot, and Chekhov’s plays, especially Uncle Vanya, and Shakespeare’s plays, especially Hamlet, which I feel I’ve memorized by now! The novel that I read over and over again is Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello. It’s a very unusual novel because it consists of a series of lectures, all delivered by a fictional novelist. The lectures are on various topics – two of them are on animals, which is another area of special interest for me. They are explicitly philosophical or theoretical lectures, but they are framed in such a way that they are equally about people and life and feelings and all the things that novels are also about. Another area of repeated reading is, of course, in poetry. My favorite poet is Emily Dickinson, so I always have a volume of Dickinson with me (on my Kindle) and I frequently dip into it.

What was the last truly great book you read?

I have two answers, one for a scholarly and one for a literary book. The last great scholarly book that I read—and am very excited and inspired by—is Slow Violence in the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon. It brings together the fields of postcolonial studies and ecocriticism (and environmental ethics and environmental justice) in ways that are extremely generative. He makes it clear how closely intertwined the basic issues of environmentalism are with issues of class, nation, race, and gender. His readings readings of various novels and films are just so dazzling and illuminating that they changed my sense of possibilities about my field. The other last great book I read is Chris Ware’s amazing graphic novel Building Stories. The title is a pun, because all the stories in there are centered on a building, but the stories also come in many different formats (literally: as in pamphlets, comic books, hard-cover and paper-back books of various sizes, posters—all packaged in a a big box that looks like a board game box), and so the book (if you can call it that) is also about how to construct narrative and how to disseminate and consume it.

What was the last disappointing book you read?

I tend to just forget about them. And I don’t always finish a book that doesn’t grab my attention. One book that I would call disappointing is Life of Pi, though when I started out loving it. However, after reading and teaching it a few times, I began to feel that maybe there’s less there than meets the eye? But that’s interesting in itself: surface brilliance, inner shallowness!

Who, according to you, are some of the most up and coming writers?

I think I’ve been reading the up-and-going writers! It’s such a huge field and now is such an extraordinary time for fiction and poetry. Junot Diaz is one young writer who is getting more and more attention. Zadie Smith is another, and she’s now a colleague at NYU, which is very cool. My favorite poet at the moment is also another NYU colleague, Maureen McLane—also super cool.

What is the first book that you remember reading?

I was born before television. I was born in India, and not only did we not TV then, we also (at least in the places I grew up; I was an “army brat”) had very few movies. So all we had for entertainment were books. I was born reading! But I think that I became a self-conscious reader was when I was a teenager, and my family was living in France. I discovered modern French literature, especially the works of Sartre, Gide, Genet. My mother just made these available to me and encouraged me to read – partly because she thought that they would improve my French, and of course they did, but they also plunged me into a world of adult complexities and emotions that I had not known about.I would date that as my awakening to the power of reading, and of fiction in particular.

What should somebody read before coming to Abu Dhabi?

Well, as I’ve been saying, for me reading is a very inward experience, more connected to exploring my inner world and life. One book that resonated with my experience and fantasies for Abu Dhabi is Dave Egger’s A Hologram for the King. It’s not about Abu Dhabi but it’s about the Gulf and American anxieties about the developments here, and how these are leaving American culture behind; the anxiety of living after the so-called “American century.” If you are going to New York for the first time, you should probably ask Professor Bryan Waterman what to read!

You have written a few books. How does the writing experience differ from the reading experience?

They’re very different. As I’ve said, I’m a huge fan of contemporary literature. But my own writing is exclusively scholarly, and the process of scholarly writing is very different. It has to do with research, discovery, and seeking formulations that one believes to be real contributions to ongoing conversations in one’s field. So in this sphere I am much more focused on these disciplinary conversations, and the ideas of other scholars, whereas when I read contemporary fiction and poetry, I am entirely focused on my inner world. I would love to find a way to bring these two experiences closer together, but I’ve never actually written in a non-scholarly mode. I think I’ve never had the guts to try that, because I am so awed by literature and fiction.

When I was an undergraduate student in India, there was no encouragement to be creative. In American, that’s not the case. Our students are encouraged to try different ways of gaining knowledge, gathering experiences, and developing different skills. There is a lot of space now for a literature major who also writes poetry and fiction. I think it’s very important to try out different kinds of writing. One shouldn’t deny oneself that.

A memorable phrase or moment from any book?

There’s one from Elizabeth Costello. It’s in a scene in which she’s just given a long, complicated, passionate lecture about animals and ethics and rationalism, and at the end of the lecture, a man stands up and says something like “What exactly are you saying? Please clarify.” She replies: “I was hoping not to have to enunciate principles. But if I must, I would say: open your heart.” To say that in a lecture at a university, to a roomful of academics and thinkers and philosophers, takes courage. It’s also, to me, a very funny moment.

Your field is drama, but you are also currently focusing on animal studies in your work. What book would you recommend for someone interested in these fields?

The book that got me into animal studies is The Postmodern Animal by Steven Baker. It’s an art history book, but also a good introduction to the theme and problems of animal studies and its framing theoretical discourses. As for an excellent recent book on drama: I’d recommend The Drama of Ideas by Harvard professor Martin Puchner, about the intersection of drama and philosophy, especially the philosophy of Plato, who was notoriously anti-theatrical.

What are your views on the reading culture in Abu Dhabi?

U: I was recently looking for book groups to join, and I found one online but then realized that it didn’t suit my needs. I know that we have “Abu Dhabi Reads,” hosted by NYUAD, and I think that’s fabulous. I don’t think we have a poetry reading group. In New York I was once in a group called Poetry Aloud, in which you brought in and read out not just your own poetry, but any poems that you love. I am not aware of things like that here, but if they’re not here already I’m sure they are going to develop soon. There is so much happening just on our campus and through the Institute. Also we have a fantastic library and extremely helpful librarians. So I think the reading culture here is going to grow very fast, and in very rich ways.

What would be the ideal plot?

I don’t think there is such a thing, Aristotle notwithstanding! In fiction, the important thing is for the writer to have a deep impulse towards the truth, and that has to be worked out through a fearless engagement with whatever experiences the writer has had. The plot is just the scaffolding; it’s the feelings and the ideas that make great literature.

We will say four randomly selected words and you have to share your thoughts on them.

“Gatsby”

Widely studied, highly canonized novel, which was recently turned into an extraordinary eight-hour play—entitled Gatz—the brilliant New York based theater company Elevator Repair Service.

“Hogwarts”

I must be the only person in the universe who has not read Harry Potter and has no interest in it. I don’t care for fantasy literature at all, though I adore mythology. I suppose one could make an interesting case that Harry Potter, because it was so successful, came close to becoming a new myth, but for me that word carries a lot of weight, and refers to a kind of ancient story that encapsulates some profound human wisdom.

“Dumas”

Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo has an interesting role in the history of American drama. There were many plays based on the novel, and one of them became a kind of life-long acting job for James O’Neill, the father of Eugene O’Neill (one of the very greatest of American playwrights). As a boy, Eugene and the rest of the family traveled wherever this production of the play toured, and the play—and the title character—became a lens for O’Neill to understand life and relationship. Numerous echoes of it can be found in his plays.

“Tennessee Williams”

My feelings towards him are close to outright worship! He was an extraordinary and visionary artist, with a true genius for dramatic encounter and tension. He suffered a great deal, struggling with homophobia, family dysfunction and loss, and alcohol. He scored some great successes on Broadway early in his career, introducing a whole new kind of play—the so-called “Southern psychological melodrama” that proved to be a great vehicle for the new kinds of actors and actresses being trained in America. But then the theatre world wanted him to write that same kind of play over and over again, while he, of course—being a real artist—needed to keep moving on and writing plays that dealt with the changing times. So, in the latter part of his life, he was plunged into failure, and poverty, and despair. In the past decade many of his later plays have been rediscovered and staged, and they prove that he never stopped being a dramatic and theatrical genius.

How should one read?

Honestly, you should first find out what gives you pleasure in reading – whether it is reading one novel a year, or one novel a week. Find out what kind of novel, poem, or play gives you pleasure. Take that quest first and take it seriously. Read many kinds of different things, and work hard to identify what feeds you and leaves you feeling enriched and happy. And then keep reading that way.

BY JAMIE SUTHERLAND

50 AED = 70 Argetine pesos (April 2013)

You’ve got seventy Argentine pesos in your pocket, and the day ahead of you. Where to start?

Wherever you wake up, you can surely find a coffee and a croissant nearby – café y medialunas are the most Argentine way to start the day. Café Josephine in Recoleta, Delicious Café closer to the NYU site or even Oui Oui in Palermo all do the job nicely, and you’ll only have spent fifteen or so of your hard-earned pesos.

Take a stroll down Avenida Figueroa Alcorta in the midday sun, stopping off in Plaza de las Naciones Unidas to admire Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano’s giant steel sculpture, Floralis Genérica (ab0ve). Cool off in the contemporary Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (sixteen pesos with your student ID) or Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires (free!) before heading over to Recoleta for the afternoon.

Stop by a sandwichería to pick up something to keep you going – try Mon Oncle on Avenida Pueyrredón and practice your Spanish with the couple behind the counter. Head over to Recoleta’s famous cemetery (below) and spend a free hour or so wandering amongst the stunning monuments. Snap yourself out of your reverie with a café cortado at Clásica y Moderna and bring a book – you’ve still got a while before dinnertime.

Buenos Aires runs late. Head to eat out at a restaurant before 10:30PM and you’ll probably be surrounded by small children. Maybe grab a siesta and then stop by Social de Lechuza later on for an authentic Argentine steak, but maybe split one with a friend – the steaks are huge, and you want to keep a few of those pesos for the night ahead.

You’ve still got a while, as nightlife in Buenos Aires doesn’t wind down until about 6AM. From Lechuza, you can walk into Palermo Soho and find your own favorite nightspot. Dance the night away mixing with pretty porteños (Buenos Aires natives), and then head home to grab some sleep before another day in the city. Recount the night’s adventures to your friends over more coffee and croissants the next morning, and then head to a park. The food may be excellent, and the museums may be great, but a day spent with friends in a park is the true Buenos Aires life.

[Photos by Jason Lester]

BY NAILA KALANI

You will want to start early; Abu Dhabi is savored best before noon. Depending on how sympathetic the weather is to your flâneur spirit, you could walk to Al Khaleej Bakery down Hamdan and Salaam street (or you could take a taxi). Inside the bakery, the clientele stands at the counter, looking through the window behind the counter, where half a dozen men knead and balance paddles of dough into a large wood-fire oven. Above, there is a sign in Arabic that reads to the effect of “Cleanliness is from Faith.” I recommenced the cheese manakeesh (4.5 dhs), but there are other options, like za’tar, spinach or minced meat.

You will emerge from the bakery soaked to the bone with steam and the smell of bread, ready to take on this relatively sterilized side of the road. I’ll leave it in your hands to find somewhere to get chai (1 dirham) –chai kiosks are everywhere, and your status as a local depends on your ability to find them. Here’s a tip—you could try Afrah Refreshments, across the street near the Russian embassy.  Then make your way to Capital Gardens. (You might wish that you’d brought a sturdier covered mug with you, to accommodate all this walking, but hey, casually sipping from a styrofoam cup makes you look more like a local than toting a Starbucks mug.)

Once you enter the park (walking beneath two tilted ibrik sculptures definitely justifies the one-dirham entrance fee), find a place to sit by the fountain, maybe near the flowers or some moody-looking teen couples. Politely decline the horse keeper’s offer of a horseback ride (or accept it, but then you might not have enough money left at the end of the day for ice cream) and peruse the charming—if not confusing—grafitti plastered on the electricity vaults .

Duck into Thrift, one of the few second-hand book shops you’re likely to find in Abu Dhabi. The books are incredibly cheap (averaging between 9-18 AED) and amidst all the would-be bestsellers, there are some legitimately unique finds. Linger for a while, buy something if you like, then be on your way. There are a few options at this point: you could get your free art fix of the day and hang out at the Cultural Foundation, check out Ghaf Gallery, or Acento Gallery at the Mina. If you’re hungry, then follow Hamdan Street in the general direction of NYU’s Downtown Campus, but turn into the alley two buildings before the Crowne Plaza, where you’ll find Hatam at-Tae’i.

Named after a Pre-Islamic Arabian poet known for his extravagant generosity, this aptly titled restaurant knows their stuff. They offer 25-dirham specials of Persian-style meat/fish/vegetable combos with rice. Sit down, and savor the place in all its yellow-walled, TV-documentary showing glory. If you didn’t buy a book or a horse ride, then you probably have enough to buy some ice cream (15 dhs). If you don’t have any extra dirham, then forego dinner in favor of ice cream. The ice cream here is not just any ice cream: it is thick, vaguely chewy, oh so refreshing saffron ice cream and its clean taste is the perfect companion to a hazy Abu Dhabi evening.  Take the ice cream to go—you should be outside for such a transformative experience—and walk or take a taxi to the mina, then sit by the dhow harbor and watch the sunset.

“When built in 1890, the Palacio Barolo was the tallest building in South America,” says Diego, his upturned finger inviting my eyes skywards. As the tour continues its leisurely pace through the streets of Buenos Aires, I hang behind for a moment, sheltering my eyes from the sunlight that shines back from the windows. Now where have I seen this before?

Of course: only a few months had passed since I stood with my mouth gaping open at the base of the Burj Khalifa, craning my neck as far back as it could go to catch a full view of the tower. That time as well, gleaming surfaces had stunned me into silence. “The world’s tallest building, sure, but I hear they’re building a taller one in Saudi Arabia,” my friend had muttered. “The fountain show here is spectacular though; can you believe that we’re surrounded by sand-dunes?”

I had indeed forgotten about the desert; in a city like Dubai, it is all-too-easy to forget where you were. Our tour group (made up of Indian, Japanese and Chinese tourists among others) stands out like a sore thumb; in Dubai, on the other hand, where foreigners are the overwhelming majority, every local I saw wearing the traditional abaya or khandora stood flanked by three tourists with straw hats perched atop their heads. Buenos Aires, as Dubai, beats down a prickly heat that makes my shirt stick to my back, but the pronounced development of the desert landscape in Dubai relegates the summer to an expendable commodity; one can, in the same afternoon, venture on a desert safari in sweltering temperatures and then enjoy an indulgent shopping experience in the air-conditioned interiors of Dubai Mall.

In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, cities engrossed in the attempt to “rebrand” themselves as leading tourist destinations, these dueling images crop up everywhere you go: a shawarma stall huddled next to Starbucks, a tiny barbershop at the base of a towering skyscraper. These contrasts make me wonder: how does a newly developing city differentiate itself to carve a unique identity? What is a city’s identity? In Buenos Aires of 1890, a combination of freedom from colonial rule and a prime trading location put them in the same category where Abu Dhabi and Dubai now find themselves: governments with ambitious development plans and no dearth of resources to fulfill them. In these plans, however, why was possessing the superlative of the “tallest” building so important to Buenos Aires? Where would Dubai feature on the global map if a taller building really is built in Saudi Arabia?

View from the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

In sociological circles, the use of money in an overt manner is called “conspicuous consumption.” Thorstein Veblen developed this notion to explain the tendency of consumers, regardless of social class, to signal their consumption habits to their peers in a way that emphasizes their monetary strength.

While the Veblen model is essentially microcosmic and has become known, colloquially, as the “Keeping up with the Kardash…Joneses” mentality, I wonder if the same concept could apply to urban development; don’t governments, just like people, harbor dreams of upward mobility and increased prestige? In attempting to differentiate one city from another and create a unique identity, developers – quite understandably – focus on drawing tourism through the rare and the novel.

At the most basic level, the superlative mentality is showboating – there are no two ways about it. The motivations, however, may derive from nothing more than a quirk of economic practice and the exhibitionist impulse at the core of human nature. Conspicuous consumption cannot be singularly achieved: creating a unique identity compels at least a basic awareness of the achievements of one’s peers, or the limits of what has come before..

As Buenos Aires once prized the tallest building in South America and Dubai now proudly hosts the tallest building in the world, these buildings are important because, quite simply, they are (or were) taller than the rest – the identity of the city emerges through comparison. Some superlatives are more ludicrous than others: no record books are being rewritten to include the world’s first hydromagnetic-powered tornado in the world (in Yas Waterworld) or the most expensively ornamented Christmas tree (in Emirates Palace, the most expensive hotel in the world).

Yet, is the identity of a city so one-dimensional as to be reduced solely to her tourist attractions? In the framework of urban development where identity is conceived in relativistic and competitive terms, how does culture and tradition figure into the global perception – and identity – of a city or country? Going back to a household model: if I wanted to decorate my home over the holidays, I’d be lying (or overly competitive) if I said that I always acted with my peers in mind. The ornaments on the Christmas tree may create an identity for the household based on the superior allure – “have you seen the solid gold star on Martin’s tree?” – but then again, another family may place the same ornament atop the tree as it has for the past few decades purely out of reverence for the household tradition.

A government, perhaps, is no different: both Buenos Aires and Dubai attempted to position themselves on the global map through elaborate development strategies, and the identity of the city came to be associated with those attempts. Buenos Aires, as an example of a much older city, was once identified with the tallest building in South America but no longer holds that title, which suggests that urban identity is transient and, perhaps, even fragile. When the dust from a construction site settles and a taller building comes forth in another country, does the city lose its only identity?

If we look beyond the framework of the superlative mentality, then the answer is a reassuring no. Tourists continue to visit Buenos Aires, if not for the “tallest building” or a mélange of cultures then for the pulsating experience of tango lessons. The newer governments of Abu Dhabi and Dubai have, to their credit, recognized the importance of upholding cultural heritage: what results is a loving but sometimes fraught embrace between the superlative mentality and cultural tradition. No expense is spared, it seems, in creating large-scale theme parks or innumerable foreign chains but cultural norms remain paramount. Prada stores and prayer rooms stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the same stretch of mall space, and locals flit between the two. None of the burger chains in the city serve pork, but camel meat, the desperate (but life-saving) measure of Bedouins, “back in the day,” quite literally provides you a taste of local culture.

In many respects, cultural traditions are like the rolling sand dunes that surround these developing cities. In a country where foreign influences constantly vie for attention, where hotels jostle for space with labor camps, I have – like many new residents – struggled to reconcile myself to the opulent displays of wealth, and spent many an hour in the search for the identity of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. But sometimes, all it takes is to remember that, like the sand-dunes, the culture is living and breathing around us, coming alive in little but noticeable ways. That a shawarma stall and a skyscraper – or a foreign boutique and a mosque – can coexist in the same space certainly counts for more than the height of the skyscraper, or the expense of importing the marble of the mosque. And so, whether Saudi Arabia builds a taller building than the Burj Khalifa or not, life in Dubai and Abu Dhabi will continue. The superlative mentality is incidental, and not instrumental, to identity.

[Photo credit: Cyrus R. K. Patell]

BY SACHI LEITH

The Qasr al Hosn Festival was a ten-day community exhibition organized by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority and held at the site of fort Qasr al Hosn, the city’s oldest building. Celebrating the history of the fort—which was built in 1761 and later became the ancestral home of the ruling Al Nahyan family—and the heritage  of the Emirates following from this iconic structure, the festival boasts many pieces of material culture: traditional objects, structures, foods, and animals.

Perhaps the most prevalent, and the most puzzling, however, were the scores of people who have been appointed to work as the festival’s “cast.” While groups of festivalgoers wandered the old-timey souks, traced circles in the sand atop well-groomed horses and camels, and queued up for theatrical presentations, the cast of Qasr al Hosn performed. Some seemed in another world, focused solely on their handicrafts—among others, two men build a large dhow ship with resinous nails while a third carves palm wood into pieces for a smaller fishing boat; women in leather burkhas wove baskets and carpets with their skillful, henna-blackened fingers; and a group of fisherman sat in a circle, singing old Arabic sea shanties around a pile of wicker fishing nets. Not far away was a full bridal house, complete with a traditional Emirati “bride” and a gaggle of young bridesmaids, dancers with colorful dresses and hair that reached to the center of their backs. Young Emirati men, decked out in old policemen’s uniforms with heavy fake rifles and dusty brown keffiyeh, strolled the festival grounds. These cast members were consciously assembled, like objects in a museum, to both create and communicate a sense of Abu Dhabi’s material cultural heritage, grown from the white washed walls of the old stone fort.

Part of this distinction between person and object—even human “objects”—has to do with the other roles that people fulfill at the festival. Not everyone became an object. Each participant wore an identification tag with one of three distinctions—“Volunteer,” “Event Staff,” or “Cast.” While the cast was responsible for representing traditions of Emirati culture through certain kinds of performance (weaving, singing, crafting, storytelling, simply looking traditional), it was the staff and volunteers who interacted with the festival’s ticketholders. As I entered the festival, I was soon greeted by a young Emirati teen with a red and green armband from Takatof, a volunteer organization in the UAE. This young man, and later a group of knowledgeable high school–age Emirati girls, showed me around the various stalls, booths, and craft areas, explaining each tableau we approached—who the people inside were, what they were doing or making, and how the objects around them functioned.

Contributing to the need for mediation was the language barrier; if I spoke Arabic, I would have been able to understand the stories of the old marine storyteller. But as festival photographers snapped shots of men playing the rababa or building a dhow ship, it was easy to see that these performers were aware of their role as a spectacle of national tradition. Emphasizing this fact were the QR codes placed next to each “scene,” giving smart phone users easy access to these explanations without human contact—in most cases, one was not even required to step inside a building, much less speak to the people inside the tableaux. It was as if observers were expected to treat the cast merely as pieces in a museum, and each exhibit was carefully crafted to put us in the position of passive observers.

Some cast members were hired because of the skills they have—skills that were once an integral part of Emirati life and are now regarded as “artifacts.” The elderly fishermen, for example, weaving fishnets and drying fish in the marine area of the festival, once fed the Emirati community, and now they are “objects” used to demonstrate a historic method of subsistence. As we passed through the souk area, I saw plastic packets of dried fish at one booth, sold by a fresh-faced young Emirati man in national dress. The dried fish was once a staple of the Emirati diet, the souk vendor told me, explaining the various types of fish and their prices. As such, the fishermen would have been active participants in the economy of everyday food production. Now these men only represent daily life; they illustrate elements of Emirati culture that the Emirati girls who showed me around have never experienced. At another booth, vendors sold brightly colored woven cell phone covers. These, I saw later, were also created at the festival, this time by women weaving on a traditional loom. The fishermen and weavers were carefully chosen aspects of the past that my Emirati guides don’t actually remember—their daily lives are presumably not “traditional” enough to be displayed at the festival. So these products, the dried fish and iPhone accouterments, are tools used to remember the past while also repackaging it—literally—to serve the interests of the present.

The traditional Emirati policeman was another kind of human object. Unlike most of the other cast members, these men were mobile, found not only near the model of the police station, but also wandering the festival areas, fake rifles slung across their khaki-clad shoulders. Their minty green and dark maroon Land Rovers were interspersed throughout the heritage site in every area but the marine section, reminding us that the Qasr al Hosn was initially a watchtower and a fortress. The old-style policemen were not too far removed from today’s policemen, and while I don’t think these actors were cast to actually police the festival, they function as crowd control simply by playing the part. By patrolling the festival like policemen would have done, and by placing their trucks in the midst of the crowds, these “police” became objects that both represented order and created order. Just the presence of these men as objects was enough to create a sense of culture that not only represents what is historical, but reinforces present structures.

Using these people—the cast—as objects of material culture helps to serve the interests of the present but may also distort the image of a not so distant past. Actors in other historical reenactments—like Fort Ticonderoga, Jamestown, or Gettysburg, in the United States—are employed to make history come alive for a population that has no first-hand memory or experience of it. Visitors are led among historic rooms containing historic chairs upholstered with historic fabrics, encouraged to try their hand at historic techniques like churning butter, and entertained by performances of historic practices or events. It’s fun to plunge into the past, drawing parallels and comparisons between your life and the ones enacted by the cast with the knowledge that, unlike the American settlers, you can drive home in an air-conditioned car. In contrast, objects at the Qasr al Hosn festival were presented as “historic,” but the history in this case is so recent that it has living subjects—some of the festival’s fishermen are actually fishermen, rababa players actually play the rababa, and traditional coffee is still drunk from traditional coffee pots. This presentation of history, still remembered by some, is different than a 2013 reenactment of the American Revolution because here in Abu Dhabi, we are not looking at the past from a vantage point 250 years in the future. The people and practices showcased at the festival are part of the Emirati heritage, and part of a culture that can not and should not yet be relegated to a dusty box in the attic, or the quaint observations of the historically minded tourist. The Qasr festival put people on display to offer snapshots of a not-too-distant history and remind us of the need to remember the roots of a culture. In doing so, however, it raises the question: do these human “heritage objects” bring the past closer to us, or push it further away?

“Silk Painting” (2013)

This photo essay explores the various manifestations of my Mexican identity. There are many stereotypes and assumptions that people have about Mexico, and my project attempts to visualize these stereotypes. The assumptions about Mexico that people have create masks through which others see me; in this project I wanted to transform and “fit” the masks that might be placed on me by others.

Mexico’s involvement in the drug war has made drug-related crime a widely spoken topic in the media. Sometimes, when I say I come from Mexico, people ask me about the drug situation, and I have to explain that the entire country is not drowning in violence and crime. Even though I don’t have a personal connection to the drug war, many people in my world do have a connection, a theme I portray in photo seven.

People also know Mexico because of the immigration problems that Mexico has with the United States. But not all Mexicans are immigrants. I portrayed myself as an immigrant to explore another image that might mask my identity, and that affects how people look at me, whether I like it or not (photos 2 & 3).

Other images in this series are not related to precise stereotypes but play with Mexican folk traditions and artwork. For example, the “calaca” or “catrina,” shown in photos 4 & 5, is a folk representation of death in Mexico used in celebrations like “Día de los Muertos” (“Day of the Dead.”) The artwork in photo 6 is typical of Mexican homes, created by a group of indigenous Mexican people, the Otomí. These are things, along with my family, seen in photo 1, that I associate not only with Mexican culture but also with personal memories of Mexico.

This photo essay is meant to show the way that I, as a Mexican, embody not only my own memories, but also the memories and experiences of my country.

1
I am Mexican because of my memories and my nuclear family in Mexico.

2 & 3
The stories of Mexican immigrants to the United States, whether they directly affect me or not, form part of my Mexican identity.

4 & 5
I embody a “catrina” or “la calaca”. Even though foreigners think the “calaca” might be scary, it can be found in many Mexican homes, representing something that is actually a joyful celebration.

6
An Otomí piece of artwork. The Otomís are indigenous people from the center of Mexico.

7
I am recreating a drug-related crime. Frequently, victims show signs of torture, and have a sign with some sort of message stabbed to their bodies. The sign in the photo says, “So you learn your lesson motherfuckers.”

8
In this picture my reflection is not my face but another face, with darker skin. This picture represents the assumption that all Mexicans have dark skin when, in fact, there are Mexicans with dark skin, and there are Mexicans with fair skin.

BY LAUREN HORST

50 AED = 28 cedis [GH₵] (April 2013)

Perhaps you spent the day at school, immersed in the Pan-African theories of Ghana’s founder, Kwame Nkrumah, or at your internship for the nearby hospital. Or maybe you sweated your way through the sprawling open-air Makola Market, purchasing off-brand toothpaste and colorful African print to add to your ever-growing fabric collection. Maybe you tasted the plantain chips, roasted yams, groundnut paste (essentially, peanut butter), and impossibly sweet pineapples sold at the stands on the side of the road.

You might think you’ve seen all Accra has to offer.

As the sun goes down, however, Accra’s vibrant arts, music and literature scene comes alive. Twenty-eight cedis in your pocket is all you need to immerse yourself in that world.

First, before leaving your neighborhood, catch a bite to eat at the famed Auntie Muni’s. Widely touted as the best waakye (a beans and rice dish) joint in all of Accra, this budget-friendly meal will run you no more than seven cedis. If you’ve already grabbed dinner, or are in the mood for something sweet, the recently opened Italian-style gelateria, Arlecchino, on bustling Oxford Street, offers some exotic flavors, including cashew, for around the same price.

While you’re in the trendy Osu neighborhood, consider stopping by +233 Jazz Bar and Grill (so named for Accra’s mobile area code). For five cedis, you’ll hear Ghanaian and other African musicians live. Or bring your five cedis to The Republic, where one night you might hear a Nigerian band cover “Wonderwall” and “Use Somebody”, and the next cheer for an expat college student as she opens for a local jazz band. Either way, five cedis well spent.

Afterwards, swing by Reggae Night at Labadi Beach, where another five cedis will get you a slightly grungier and certainly sandier experience, or head to an event at the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium like the Independence Day concert, which featured dozens of West African artists. Ask anyone to teach you the azonto, the newest Ghanaian dance craze that’s sweeping the West African and international music scene.

By now, you’ve heard everything from American pop covers to traditional Ghanaian high-life to reggae. How about some spoken word?

It can be tricky finding out about art events and exhibits in Accra, where art galleries and theaters are fairly recent and their websites outdated and unhelpful. Here’s a trick: head to Facebook and other social media platforms for the most up-to-date information.

The Goethe-Institut, Alliance-Francaise, Nubuke Foundation, and the Dei Centre all put on exceptional exhibits and events, most of which you can discover through their Facebook pages if not their websites. For example, the arts collective Ehalakasa hosts monthly “Talk Parties” at the Nubuke Foundation – essentially open mic nights. For ten cedis, you’ll get to hear and rub shoulders with some of Ghana’s most well-recognized performers, including Mutombo da Poet and WanLov the Kubolor.

If you didn’t buy a gelato earlier, you’ll have a few cedis left over, which you can use to pick up a CD from one of the artists you heard tonight. The CD purchase will support the Ghanaian arts scene and be a lasting memento of the evening—a unique souvenir of your time in Accra. Just make sure to keep back a few cedis so that you can split the cost of a taxi home with some friends.

With its colorful markets and rich heritage sites, Accra during the day is something to see. But Accra at night, that’s something to experience.

[Photo credit: Lauren Horst. Independence Day concert at Ohene Djan Sports Stadium]

Electra Street sponsoring a second “Abu Dhabi Reads” program in conjunction with the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. We’ll be reading Across the Empty Quarter, an abridged version of Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger’s classic account of his travels in the Empty Quarter in the middle of the twentieth century. Our discussion will take place in the Garden of NYUAD’s Downtown Campus starting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 11. The formal discussion will last just over an hour, with time for informal discussion over refreshments afterward.

Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. He joined the Sudan Political Service in 1935 and later served in Abyssinia, Syria and with the SAS in the Western Desert during the Second World War. In Arabian Sands, Thesiger describes his early experiences in the Sudan and Ethiopia, but the bulk of the book concerns his two crossings of the Arabian Peninsula’s “Empty Quarter” — the longest continuous sand desert in the world — between 1946 and 1948. The 250,000 square miles of desert that he traversed and re-traversed are now part of modern-day Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Yemen. Along the way, he took the marvelous black-and-white photographs for which he is equally remembered. You can see them on the website of the Pitt Rivers Museum, which houses his archive.

Here’s how Thesiger begins his account:

I first realized the hold the desert had upon me when travelling in the Hajaz mountains in the summer of 1946. A few months earlier I had been down on the edge of the Empty Quarter. For a while I lived with the Bedu a hard and merciless life, during which I was always hungry and usually thirsty. My companions had been accustomed to this life since birth, but I had been racked by the weariness of long marches through wind-whipped dunes, or across plains where monotony was emphasized by the mirages shimmering through the heat. There was always the fear of raiding parties to keep us alert and tense, even when we were dazed by lack of sleep. Always our rifles were in our hands and our eyes searching the horizon.

Thesiger documents a way of life that existed in the desert for hundreds of years, coming to an end only recently with the discovery of oil in Arabia. Across the Empty Quarter presents the chapters devoted to the two crossings. Those who have the complete Penguin edition of Arabian Sands (available on Kindle) or the editions published in the UAE by Motivate Publishing — either Arabian Sands or the lavishly illustrated Crossing the Sands — and want to read more might take a look at the following chapters: “Secret Preparations at Salala” and “The Approach to the Empty Quarter,” which are rich with ethnographic detail, and “The Trucial Coast,” which describes the month that Thesiger spent in the in Abu Dhabi and then in Al Ain with Sheikh Zayed. (The Al Jahili Fort in Al Ain now houses a permanent exhibition devoted to Thesiger.) The two prefaces to the Penguin edition shed interesting light on what motivated Thesiger to live among the Bedu and record his disappointment at the almost complete disappearance of their traditional way of life.

It goes without saying that reading Arabian Sands in its entirety is highly recommended; Across the Empty Quarter contains Chapters 7, 8, and 11, as well as an excerpt from the preface of the longer volume.

Our discussion on April 11 will be accompanied by a slideshow featuring Thesiger’s photos. If you think you might attend, please RSVP at the NYUAD Institute’s website so that we know how many refreshments to order.

We look forward to seeing you at Abu Dhabi Reads for an evening of lively conversation.

BY GEO KAMUS

I wake up to the silhouettes of mountains outlined by the rising sun. I fumble through my pack and find my alarm clock – it is an automatic habit – and look at the time. 6:50am. I always wake up 10 minutes earlier than my alarm, but this time I am grateful for my neurotic habit. The air that surrounds me is cool and quiet, the only sound the distant crowing of a morning rooster.

I am in a sleeping bag in Fujairah, in the campsite of an Emirati entrepreneur, Saif Al Dahmani. He is a man of medium height, with a bearded face and small, warm brown eyes. He wears an apricot-colored khandura, and a red-checkered keffiyeh wrapped around his head. He doesn’t speak much; when he does, he either speaks Arabic or mutters to the feast he has prepared for us. Plates of pita with hummus, breakfast cooked over an open fire, and an assortment of Arabic teas and coffees fill rows of table underneath a tent. Nearby, a campfire is burning, a welcome sensation amidst the cold desert winds that blow from the mountain peaks at dawn

Saif is an entrepreneur supported by the Khalifa Fund, the UAE’s government fund that helps to develop small- to medium-sized investments in the country. Saif used the money to build a traditional Emirati campsite among the mountains of Fujairah, offering a unique cultural experience that takes pride in its rugged hospitality. Stripped of the glamor associated with its neighbors in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the campsite has far-reaching appeal: Saif has had guests ranging from intrepid backpackers to dignitaries from the French embassy. For entrepreneurs like Saif, the future is bright with promise.

Standing up slowly, every inch of my body tingles with awakening. The front side of the tent is open to the panoramic view of Fujairah. For those who slept outdoors like myself, Seif has prepared tents adorned with Emirati fabrics, ornately patterned and resistant against the blowing wind. Others slept in stone huts topped with large swaths of thin leaves.

I pause for a moment and look up from my notebook, and see that the sun has risen above the mountains. I let the warmth wash over me, and offer a small morning prayer in homage to the natural beauty around me. The mountain vistas of Fujairah rejuvenate me: I will return to the concrete cityscape of Abu Dhabi invigorated and refreshed.

[Photography by Geo Kamus]