This study aims at exploring the rhetorical processes underpinning condolences, as expressed by Saudi Arabian governmental authorities on social media, with a focus on Twitter. Taking its starting point in January of 2015, when the Charlie Hebdo shooting took place in Paris, this study looks comparatively at several acts of terror in order to answer whether these different attacks elicited different responses, and if so, what knowledge can be drawn from this conclusion. Furthermore, this study examines the role of social media in public diplomacy, and in the production and distribution of political discourse, especially as it relates to statements of condolences and expressions of solidarity mediated through twitter. In order to explore this, rhetorical criticism (Mral 2008; Foss 2004; Peirce 2003) is combined with pentadic criticism (Burke 1945) and performativity theory (Rosenberg 2018; Zivi 2016; Gregson and Rose 2014) to form the methodology. A key theoretical concept in this study is “grievability,” which aims at understanding why some deaths are grieved and others are not (Butler 2009; Butler 2004; Butler 2003). As this study shows, mourning itself can be understood as rhetoric, serving political and diplomatic functions rather than being an expression of actual, sincere solidarity or grief. This study also shows that tweets from official government sources can be seen as a performance of public diplomacy, and as performative of the official’s own position. Lastly, it is argued that offering condolences are a way to purchase “humanitarian capital,” which is becoming increasingly important in global politics.

This study utilizes ethnographic methods to inquire how ideas of masculinities are perceived by English-language media professionals and media audiences in Egypt. Using semi-structured interviews and a survey, the aim is to find common narratives on how masculinity is perceived on personal levels and what terms are used to describe men and masculinities, which in turn can be used as the basis for further analysis of Egyptian media content. The word “narrative” in itself is used to convey personal experience, and the telling of those experiences, rather than generalizable data applicable to the larger population. Found are several common themes, such as emphasized heterosexuality, and the expectation of men as providers and protectors, which is related, by the respondents, to the nation and the military. Protection and militarism relates to ideas of strength, honor, and courage. Men are almost exclusively seen as possessors of power. The ‘head of the household,’ and the head of state, both portrayed as iconized leaders, emerge as the quintessence of Egyptian masculine identity, whether that identity is contested or not.

The chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the broadcasting sector in Egypt, demonstrating the significance of this sector in promoting the ideologies and policies of Egypt’s successive regimes, beginning with Nasser’s through al-Sisi’s governments. Although the sector was subjected to liberalization, under Mubarak’s rule, state television still dominated the broadcasting sector and controlled the dissemination of public information and news. When private licenses were granted, the new private stations were barred from engaging in newsgathering, and those who overstepped this line quickly lost their licenses. The hope for political changes after the overthrow of Mubarak has largely dissipated, as media censorship has continued under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, and it has intensified under al-Sisi’s presidency.

Cet article aborde quelques aspects et fonctions concernant le début d’un corpus de romans arabes du XXe siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. L’analyse des débuts est basée sur une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et prend en compte les aspects suivants : les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage), le rapport du début avec l’ensemble de la structure narrative du récit, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes, le lien éventuel entre le début et la fin du récit, enfin, les répercussions de l’évolution chronologique du roman arabe sur le début de celui-ci.

The beginning of Arabic novels of the first half of the 20th century, including those belonging to the so called “realism” trend, are charatcerized by certain traits concerning, among other things, the way they insert the  three elements : space, time, character into the text, the reality effect  they create, and the presence of the narrator as an addressor. With  the introduction of new writing techiniques after the 60's, these  trends changed gradually. From, for example,  introducing the the (space, time character) as a block and describing them in length , creating a realistic setting for the story , and having a discrete presence of the addressor, they have evolved into more diverse models where the three elements are spred ; the realistic impression loses its importance ; and the interpolations of the addressor into the text are more frequent. The present article aims, firstly, to present the major teatures of that evolution, and secondly, to show through a detailed analysis of the beginning of Thatrthara fawq al-Nil, 1966 by N. Mahfuz that this work, written in a pivotal moment of the history of the Arabic novel, includes already the beginnings of that evolution.

Cet ouvrage consiste en une étude détaillée des débuts d''un corpus de romans arabes du vingtième siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. Il tente de répondre aux interrogations suivantes: Qu''est-ce qu''un début de roman? Quelles sont, sur le plan énonciatif, les "priorités" dans le début? Comment le début fonctionne-t-il par rapport à l''ensemble du récit? Les composantes principales de l''histoire y sont- elles annoncées et si oui, comment? Enfin, existe-t- il des aspects spécifiques aux débuts des romans arabes liés à la culture dont ils sont issus? L''auteur a, par ailleurs, adapté une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et pris en compte les aspects suivants: les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage); le rapport du début avec l''ensemble de la structure narrative du récit; l''éventuel lien entre le début et la fin de celui- ci, enfin, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes. Cette démarche a, parallèlement, permis de dégager les convergences et les divergences entre les récits étudiés et d''y repérer une certaine évolution chronologique.

This article presents shortly the evolution of the concepts of Utopia and Dystopia in the Modern Arabic narrative literature. It focuses then on the Utopia/Dystopia related to the theme of immigration. The two short stories: Aknusu al-šams ʿan al-suṭūḥ (1994) by Ḥanān al-Šayḫ, and Bi-l-Ams Ḥalimtu Bika (1984) by Baha’ Tahir are chosen to underline several aspects of the Utopia/Dystopia of the immigrants life. Before leaving their homelands, they seem to have an Utopian image of the foreign country. After arriving there, this Utopian image disappears in the context of a negative reality: lonliness, racism, loss of landmarks.... At the same time, the Dystopia of the reality creates, itself, a new form of Utopia: the faraway homeland. Thus the process of immigration seems to start from the Utopian elsewhere and ends by the Utopian homeland.  

By shedding light on accounts from unaccompanied Afghan asylum-seeking minors in Sweden who were child soldiers in Syria, this thesis explores and examines their narratives and their involvement in the civil war in Syria. The research aims to create a deeper understanding of how these children themselves made sense of their participation in the war by answering the following questions: How were the children approached by the recruiters?

What kind of reasons for joining the war are put forward by the recruiters and what strategies do the children encounter: a) economic; b) identity formation; c) social deprivation; d) feeling of vulnerability; e) militarization; f) mental development; g) ideology/ religious-sectarian; or all together?

How do the children perceive these encounters and make sense of their recruitment to the Shiite Fatemiyoun Brigade? To which extent has the ideology of Shi’ism played an important role for them in joining the Syrian War? This is a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews which combines procedures from two approaches and techniques: an ethnographic approach and a narrative approach that explores the interviewees’ experiences in a period of time and also generates detailed insights.

Despite the fact that none of the respondents testified for being recruited at gunpoint or having been ill-treated, the respondents emphasized that they were forced to join due to the bad circumstances they were living in. In addition, many similarities with other cases regarding child soldiering in several countries have been explored in this thesis, for instance factors related to the socio- economic context and the experiences that are related to the children’s development processes.

Differences can be located in various details regarding ideologies and indoctrination since the respondents did not share the politico-religious purposes of the recruiters. 

This study examines how the word ʾillā is treated in the Swedish Qur’ān translation from 1917 by Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen. The analysis is based on Swedish and Arabic grammar and translation theory, and considers the fact that this Qur’ān translation is considered to be quite faithful to the source text. The study finds that the textual equivalent of ʾillā varies greatly in the target text, and further that it is not limited to exclusive conjunctions nor exceptives; rather, it often consists of a restrictive adverb in an affirmative clause, when ʾillā in the source text is in a negative clause. This points to a unique problematic of translation where ʾillā is concerned, which warrants further examination in future studies. 

This paper is an attempt to describe how two religious edicts by the current Egyptian grand mufti relate to an ongoing theological debate in the Muslim world on the nature of miracles and the state of mankind between life and death. The study illustrates how the mufti adheres to the Sunni theological school of Ash‘ariyya and in what way said school has emerged as a theological middle ground between the literal and interpretative schools of thought. The study also reveals how the Mufti as a guardian of the faith must operate within a secularising context and what strategies are possible for him to utilise if he is to meet the demands of a modernised society whilst retaining a coherent religious explanation. In his office as grand mufti, Ali Goma may well be described as a traditionalist where theological matters are considered even if the governmental institute of Dār al- iftā has been modernised under his supervision and now uses 24 hour phone lines, e-mail, facebook and has an official webpage and translates many of its edicts into other languages than Arabic. This means that Dār al-iftā and Ali Goma are communicating an official Islam not only to the Muslims of Egypt, but has transformed from a national institute to a player in the era of globalisation. 

This paper describes how everyday muslims with no formal (or weak) affiliation to sufi brotherhoods in Upper Egypt practice and relate to sufism as a grand scheme or larger islamic tradition. The thesis highlights the importance of islamic sainthood in everyday religion, whereby the saintly dead are regarded as acting intermediaries between the divine and the worldly realms. Saints, holy people and blessed places are given agency through divine blessings, thus allowing villagers to partake in a larger islamic tradition through the mediation of– or cult connected to saints. This paper intends to demonstrate that an islamic concept of sanctity in muslim environments does not only exist historically, but is central to the contemporary religious landscape of Upper Egypt. 

This thesis consists of literary case study of a classical Arabic travel narrative dictated by the Moroccan scholar and Ṣūfī Yūsuf ʾibn ʿĀbid al-Fāsī (يوسف بن عابد الفاسي) (d.1048/1638) in his new-found home in Hadramawt, Yemen. The study seeks to investigate the Ṣūfī dimension of the corpus text and address its legacy within the riḥla tradition (AR. الرحلة al-riḥla) by the usage of Ṣūfī elements, generic riḥla codes, and devices pertaining to narrative. The results that emerged from this three-folded theoretical approach seems to support the posed hypothesis regarding the peregrinative reminiscence of ʾIbn ʿĀbid being an early – if not one of the earliest admitted to at least this day – forerunner to the mystical branch of riḥla that would later flower in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which the writings of the acclaimed Damascene scholar and Ṣūfī Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ġanī al-Nābulusī (عبد الغني النابلسي) (d. 1143/1731) are widely told to exemplify. Yet, the study also challenges the categorization of the riḥla genre, given the liberate and open nature of its format – resulting in a liable conventional standard, against which every riḥla ought to be measured, being almost impossible to produce. As an alternative, the study suggests that one rather should speak of developments or currents within the large body of literature called riḥla.

This volume consists of articles on imagery in the poetry of various literary canons. Focussing on figurative speech, the authors analyse poetry of the Near East, Greece, the Arabic world, early modern Spain, classical China and classical Japan. The articles present new research based on individual approaches for each particular canon within a wide span from socio-cultural environment to semantic and cognitive properties of specific images. They deal with the poetics of the other, the role of the poet, poetic persuasion in politics, traditional typologies of tropes, intertextuality, and the principle of analogy. The authors combine literary theory with specialised knowledge of the local context and literary tradition and provide innovative and dynamic close readings.

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo

during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the

woman’s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric

material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.

The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion

regarding women’s rights. A woman is first and foremost a mother and wife, according to the

local culture as well as the religion. The respondents are very critical towards the Muslim

Brotherhoods political agenda, and claim that “they”(the respondents repeatedly referred to

the MB as “they” in the empiric material) turn to interpretations of the religion to receive

legitimacy as religious role models. According to the respondents the woman

has legal rights but the implementation and interpretation of the Islamic law is problematic. Some of the respondents accuse the current political Islamic regime for deliberate neglect in the educational sector, and calls for a reform in the religious schooling system as well as

informing women of their legal rights.

This thesis also analyses the tension between western human rights laws and a local

community, where human rights discourse is associated with an imperialistic and colonial

power.

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the woman’s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.

The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion regarding women’s rights. A woman is first and foremost a mother and wife, according to the local culture as well as the religion. The respondents are very critical towards the Muslim Brotherhoods political agenda, and claim that “they”(the respondents repeatedly referred to the MB as “they” in the empiric material) turn to interpretations of the religion to receive legitimacy as religious role models. According to the respondents the woman has legal rights but the implementation and interpretation of the Islamic law is problematic. Some of the respondents accuse the current political Islamic regime for deliberate neglect in the educational sector, and calls for a reform in the religious schooling system as well as informing women of their legal rights.

This thesis also analyses the tension between western human rights laws and a local community, where human rights discourse is associated with an imperialistic and colonial power. 

In the contemporary world, the celebration of difference and avowal of identity politics have come to be regarded as the hallmarks of a progressive, modern society. Yet, the once-clear definitions of “us” and “them” are being blurred in the confusing interface of national, cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions. Citizens in politically vulnerable societies are more and more aware of the increasing anxiety about the presence of the “Other”. And this is all the more true regarding societies that suffer from communal rivalries, and on top of it, have to grapple with problems of social and political organisation due to the presence of an increasing number of refugees on its soil. The alarming number of devastating conflicts and civil wars spins off problems that necessitate new learning and new solutions to new problems, compelling us to stretch the limits of our customary imagination and self-understanding. 

The aim of the study is to examine the philosophical basis of our cultural ideals and beliefs. The central research question is wether people from diffrent cultures live in diffrenet worlds or not. The study ends up suggesting that regardless how different human cultures can be, this should however culminate in an unbridgeable separatism. A major synthesis is required here: the choice is not difference or similarity; rather, it is difference and similarity.

This book is the culmination of the Turabdin Project which goal is to monitor the development of Modern Literary Syriac essentially from the 1980s to the present. As a Scandinavian project, the majority of the data consists of literature written and published in Sweden. The approach is descriptive and contrastive relative to the Classical language, significant differences between Modern Literary Syriac and Classical Syriac are noted. The main focus is on neologisms and new developments in the lexicon.The present volume is subdivided into two parts. Part One, Context and Analysis, places the collected Modern Literary Syriac neologisms in their sociolinguistic context and presents an analysis of the most prominent features that characterise the data. Part Two, Glossary of Neologisms, consists of the list of neologisms collected, presenting the meaning of the entries, as deduced from their context, as well as proposed etymologies, their relationship to Classical Syriac, attestations in the sources, synonyms in Modern Literary Syriac when available in the data, and other relevant information. Finally, an Index of English Terms and Expressions is appended to the end of the book. Here the English translations of the neologisms discussed in the present volume are listed.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker den kurdiska diasporan i Sverige, utifrån intervjuer med studenter vidStockholms universitet som engagerar sig i den kurdiska diasporan genom medlemskap i kurdiskaföreningar och genom online-nätverk. Syftet är att undersöka transnationella aktiviteter ochgränsöverskridande relationer i diasporan utifrån en intressant väl avgränsad grupp och hur deförmedlar positiva och negativa implikationer, samt känslor utifrån Irakiska Kurdistan som referens.Frågeställningen och utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är: Hur förhåller sig studenter vid Stockholmsuniversitet som engagerar sig i den kurdiska diasporan till Irakiska Kurdistangenom transnationella aktiviter och gränsöverskridande relationer?Metoden som används är semistrukturerade intervjuer, analyserade med diasporabegreppet somett teoretiskt ramverk. Genom att se hur respondenterna förhåller sig till Irakiska Kurdistan genomaktiviteter och relationer undersöks den kurdiska diasporan. Studien redovisas med citat frånintervjuerna och det framgår tydligt att det finns ett engagemang för Irakiska Kurdistan hosrespondenterna. Resultatet visar att flera respondenter är medlemmar i kurdiska föreningar och allarespondenter är engagerade i den kurdiska diasporan via online-nätverk. Alla respondenter svarar attde följer politiska och ekonomiska händelser i området. Flera av respondenterna har röstat i Irakiskaval, en transnationell aktivitet som visar ett starkt kollektivt engagemang och hur viktig relationenmellan Sverige och Irakiska Kurdistan är.Att Irakiska Kurdistan är viktigt för den Kurdiska diasporan i Sverige tydliggörs också genomresor till området och genom en uttryckt återvändarrörelse där människor flyttar till eller tillbaks.Det uttrycks även att Irakiska Kurdistan är en fristad för människor och en arena för kurdisk kultur.Kritik som framgår är relationerna till grannländerna som ett nödvändigt ont och kritik omkorruption, något som bidragit till ökade klyftor i samhället. Den kurdiska flaggan som symbolbehandlas utifrån respondenternas olika perspektiv. En respondent nämner drömmen om Kurdistansom ett arv. Tydligt för studiens resultat är att Irakiska Kurdistan utgör en referens där varje individi diasporan upprättar sin egen kontext. Något som innefattar gränsöverskridande relationer,transnationella aktiviteter och en ständigt föränderlig identitet.

'Waqwaq' is something that is often attested in classical Arabic literature and that does not always refer to the same thing. In some cases it can be an island or even more than one. Sometimes it is a piece of land, sometimes a tree, sometimes a group of people and sometimes a bird. Waqwaq is for example found in medieval Arabic geographical texts that claims to describe the inhabited world and the end of it, which varied a lot.

Today we have a geographical end to the world we live in. We know how far we can travel and we more or less know what we are going to find. But how was it in the Arabic speaking world during the Middle Ages? Where was the end of the world located and what was to be found there?

This Magister's Thesis is about finding the characteristics for the Arabic geographical myth through waqwaq as a case study.

This Bachelor thesis deals with the sexual identity of Egyptian women who love and have relationships with other women. I theoretically study the state of existing literature on homosexuality in the Middle East, and I do this from a gender perspective. By looking closer at four recent books on this topic I derive two main, and contradictory, theories. The first is put forth by Joseph A Massad in his book Desiring Arabs, where he rejects the existence of homosexuality in the Middle East, declaring that same sex acts in this region don’t constitute identities, as in the West. The second theory, best represented in Samar Habib’s work Female homosexuality in the Middle East, sees past and present histories of same sex love as representations of homosexuality. The empirical basis for my analysis is five in-depth interviews with Egyptian women having sexual relationships with women. Examining my material I find a negation of Massad’s theory and a confirmation of Habib’s, the women indeed describe sexual identities. I look into these descriptions and see how the women have reached this point of realizing – or coming to terms. I also study their narratives of passing, as heterosexual women, in order to avoid repression. The women’s knowledge of society’s prejudice gives the explanation for their choices of passing, but at the same time the women’s stories show a will to challenge the view on lesbian women and resist the compulsory heterosexuality.

Introduction: Saudi Arabia has according to statistics from WHO one of the lowest suicide numbers in the world. At the same time the Saudi government is suspected to report too low suicide numbers since suicide is a social stigma. There are few scientific studies on the subject and the media is constantly being monitored by the Saudi government. Aims: The aims were to examine whether and to what extent suicide is reflected by Saudi suicide studies and Saudi media and if there are any differences between Saudi suicide studies and Saudi media in this regard. The aim was also to examine how Saudi media reports about domestic suicides according to notions of anchoring and objectification of social representation theory. Also a hypothesis of under reporting of suicide data in Saudi suicide studies and Saudi media was tested. Material and Methods: The Saudi suicide studies, which were found through a database search, were compiled in order to calculate the suicide numbers. After that, a search for suicide related articles on the homepages of Saudi newspapers was conducted. Thereafter, an analysis of social representation theory was conducted for the suicide related articles which were published on the homepage of the newspaper al-Hayat. Results: The picture of suicide differs between the Saudi media and the Saudi suicide studies regarding the number of yearly suicides and the distribution between genders. The Saudi media, in form of al-Hayat, describes the suicide phenomenon as something frightening that mainly affects guest workers. Al-Hayat does put forward different aspects of suicide, but holds off from reporting of current suicide cases of Saudi citizens. The Saudi suicide studies seem reasonable regarding the distribution of genders, the methods of suicide and the age range, but not regarding the number of yearly suicides and the number of Saudi citizens versus guest workers who commit suicide. Conclusions: There are differences in the reporting of suicides between Saudi suicide studies and Saudi media. The Saudi media describes suicide as something frightening and does not report of current suicides among Saudi citizens. Saudi suicide studies seem to under report the number of yearly suicides in the country.

In the wake of the 25 January revolution and the coup that followed in 2013, Egyptian bookstores recorded a significant increase in demand for books by and about the Muslim Brotherhood. However, despite the burgeoning literature on the Brotherhood, knowledge about the movement is still rather limited, particularly with regard to its most strategic tool – media and communications. 

This book offers a fresh and close look into the communication strategy of the group, focusing on published periodicals, biographies, and websites that represent the voice of the Brotherhood. The book analyses the core mission of the Brotherhood, namely its daᶜwa (call, invitation to faith) – how it is articulated and how it is defined by the movement as an ideology and a process. Have the media represented a coherent voice of the Brotherhood over the past decades? What can they communicate regarding the Brothers’ perception of the needs of their audiences? How have the media served to sustain, preserve, and distinguish the movement for nine decades? The book argues that the Brotherhood media speak with an intermittent voice and deliver an incoherent message whose tone is changeable and fluctuating and cannot be claimed to truly represent the heterogeneity of the group.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates Media Studies and Social Movement Theory, the book provides a fresh analysis of the Brotherhood movement as an interpretive community and will be a valuable resource for anyone studying Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article discusses three novels written by three Iraqi writers living in exile in Europe. It investigates how magic realism is used in these novels in order to challenge boundaries between different realms in life and thus also as a strategy to combat the exile's feeling of alienation.

Det arabiska litterära fältet har under de senastedecennierna genomgått stora förändringar. Inteminst har de omvälvande skeendena i sambandmed den den arabiska våren från 2011 och framåt,haft en stark påverkan på kulturen och pålitteraturen i arabländerna. Även andra faktorersåsom digitaliseringen och framväxten av nya me-dier har bidragit till att fler människor har fått till-gång till språket och till orden. Den tidigare såstrikta polariseringen mellan det officiella språket,standardarabiskan, en språklig variant som ärkopplad till den styrande eliten och de taladevarianterna har så smått börjat luckras upp. Nyalitterära genrer såsom fantasy, deckare, poddarpublicerade i bokform, skrivna på ett mycketvardagligt språk har kommit fram och har rönt enstor popularitet. Ett exempel på en sådan litterärgenre som har vuxit fram under det senastedecenniet är serier riktade till vuxna.

The use of social media has experienced an extraordinary growth in Morocco, along with the introduction of Internet at the end of the 20^th century. The booming of Internet users with the quick spreading of both devices and connectivity has created a new area of expression far different than the official discourse the Moroccan public was used to. The take-over of the online space in Morocco has shown new types of communication and protest that are completely in opposition with the official media discourse. Among the various social media tools that are used in Morocco today, YouTube is a one of the most popular, for both producing and watching content.

This thesis investigates the use of YouTube in Morocco, both in an official way and as a counter-power tool, mainly highlighting the emerging of oppositional popular cultural discourse and its diverse aspects.

I den här studien analyseras olika faktorers påverkan på utvecklingen av islamistiskt våld under 70-, 80- och 90-talet i Egypten. Syftet är således att skapa större förståelse kring varför den egyptiska staten fick möta detta ökade militanta motstånd. Undersökningen består av en kombinerad kvalitativ och kvantitativ analys av vetenskapliga undersökningar, rapporter och annan akademisk litteratur. Resultatet visar att den arab-israeliska konflikten har haft stor betydelse för det islamistiska missnöjet, samt att repression och ett auktoritärt styre möjligen bidrar till våldsamma politiska metoder.

This study aims to investigate the connection between concepts of masculinity and militarism in Egyptian online press. In order to avoid reification of stereotypical, orientalist constructions of Arab men as villains or oppressors, this study does not look at men in the typical sense, either as individuals or as a group, but as gendered subjects, socially constructed through performativity. Furthermore, this study is grounded in material derived from four months of ethnographic field studies in Cairo, exploring the understanding of masculinities by Egyptian media audiences and media professionals. The purpose of this study, as such, is to locate ‘militarised masculinity’ within Egyptian online press; to explore how militarism and notions of masculinity become entangled and what role the media plays in perpetuating this entanglement. Seeing how the military is an institution of state-sanctioned violence, combined with a rigid, normative representation of men and a shunning of ‘deviant masculinities’ in media, it is possible that a celebration of (ideal) masculinity as militaristic is related to issues of violence against women, and persecution of non-heterosexual men. In a time when media personalities are actively working with the police to ‘hunt’ gay men, and publicly expose those seen as deviating from ‘traditional’ or ‘hegemonic’ masculinity, it is today even more important to examine Egyptian media, in regards to minority and gender representation as well as hegemonic discourse. 

I artikeln diskuteras hur arabiska namn förs över till latinsk skrift och vilka faktorer som påverkar att samma namn kan komma att stavas på olika sätt.

I studien undersöktes om eller i vilken utsträckning fyra arabiska läroböcker som används i modersmålsundervisningen stämde överens med de grundläggande värdena i den svenska läroplanen. 2 av böckerna var producerade i Libanon, de andra 2 i Jordanien.

De grundläggande värdena gavs, baserat på tidigare forskning om läroböcker i den svenska skolan, tolkningen att läroböckerna borde framställa etnicitet, funktionsnedsättning, sexuell läggning, trosföreställning och genus på ett balanserat sätt. Därtill borde böckerna inte innehålla politisk propaganda.

Resultaten visade att de jordanska läroböckerna hade inslag av politisk propaganda lämpligheten i att använda böckerna i den svenska skolan kan ifrågasättas. De jordanska böckerna vände sig vidare till muslimska läsare, något som inte är förvånande då Jordanien är ett muslimskt land. Inga negativa kommentarer riktade mot andra religioner förekom dock. Frågan är hur relevanta dessa böcker ter sig för icke-muslimska elever.

De libanesiska böckerna innehöll inte politiskt material och var religiöst neutrala.

Samtliga böcker var däremot olämpliga i ett genusperspektiv. Kvinnorna var både kvantitativt och kvalitativt underrepresenterade. 

Den kvalitativa analysen visade att kvinnorna i böckerna hörde hemma i den privata sfären; det enda yrke kvinnor hade i alla fyra böcker var som lärare. Männen å andra sidan kopplades samman med den offentliga sfären genom arbete, teknik, kriminalitet, brottsbekämpning, resor, styrka, auktoritet, vapen, fysisk aktivitet, och liknande. Till skillnad från kvinnorna har männen en mängd olika yrken i böckerna. 

Skolan har enligt läroplanen som skyldighet att ”gestalta och förmedla” jämställdhet mellan män och kvinnor. Beskrivningen av genus i dessa böcker är alltså inte bara obalanserad utan strider direkt mot värdegrunden i läroplanen.

Artikeln handlar om boken Echnaton-Sanningssökaren (العائش في الحقيقة), ett av Nobelpristagaren Naguib Mahfouz senare verk. Handlingen utspelar sig några år efter farao Echnatons regering. En ung man söker upp och intervjuar människor som på olika sätt kom i kontakt med Echnaton under hans livstid. Karaktärerna återberättar händelseförloppet ur sina egna perspektiv och läsaren lockas att ställa olika versioner mot varandra och värdera sanningshalten. Någon absolut sanning står dock inte att finna. Däremot kommer en läsare med kunskaper i Egyptisk historia att ha andra ledtrådar angående vad som är "sant". För att utveckla den idén diskuteras några av berättelserna i relation till egyptisk historia. Den historiska utvikningen visar också vilka stora kunskaper Naguib Mahfouz besatt om egyptisk forntid. 

I artikeln diskuteras fritt etymologier för ord som kalkon, apelsin och tomat.

Arabic computational linguistics though still relatively new is gaining pace rapidly. While the development of tools for computational linguistics in many languages has come a very long way, and progress has been achieved in creating tools for Arabic, Arabic computational linguistics are in need of much attention. It is not obvious that tools developed for, let us say, English will only need minor modifications before they can be applied to Arabic. Computational tools developed for English rely heavily on enormous work achieved in English linguistics in general, and corpus linguistics more particularly. If Arabic computational linguistics is to achieve its potential, it needs to mirror the hard work done in other languages. Researchers in Arabic computational linguistics should also fully understand the nature of the data they are working with. The present article is not a review of the field, but rather a discussion on the potential, pitfalls, and challenges of Arabic computational linguistics. We will discuss the potential of what research in this field can contribute to linguistic and pedagogical research on Arabic, we will also discuss issues related to defining what ‘Arabic (language)’ is from a linguistic point of view, the nature of the Arabic script, transcription and transliteration, and finally corpus building.

Arabic is probably the largest non-native language in Sweden. Yet very little research is conducted on the language practices and attitudes among Arabic heritage speakers. The present paper explores, based on responses to a questionnaire, the practices and attitudes of 25 young second generation speakers of Arabic, born in Sweden yet whose parents were born in an Arabic speaking country. The picture that emerges is complex. With the exception of identity, where a large majority view Arabic as a positive factor, the picture is mixed. Arabic seems to have relatively little impact on the lives of the respondents, with no clearly positive or negative tendencies. One factor seems to be the exception, Arabic in Swedish schools is generally viewed negatively.

The chapter presents a discussion on the language landscape in contemporary Lebanon.