Susan Slyomovics
Biography
Research Interests:
Gender; human rights; folklore and material culture; visual anthropology; Middle East and North Africa
Subfield:
Sociocultural Anthropology
Research Interests
Gender; human rights; folklore and material culture; visual anthropology; Middle East and North Africa
Publications
Multimedia
Fatna ElBouih: Talk of Darkness, Human Rights in Morocco. A public reading and lecture at UCLA, March 10, 2009. watch video
A Thousand and One Nights: Oral Epic Performance The Tale of Anas al-Wujud and al-Ward fi-l-Akmam. An Oral Performance by Awadallah Abd al-Jalil Ali. watch video
A Thousand and One Nights: The Merchant of Art Supplementary media for the UCLA course: A Thousand and One Nights Alf Layla wa-Layla, taught by Prof. Susan Slyomovics. watch video
Books
2024. Monuments Decolonized: Algeria’s French Colonial Heritage. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2023. Editor. Ordering Imperial Worlds: From Late Medieval Spain to the Modern Middle East, editor. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
2022. Co-editor. Race, Place, Trace: Essays in Honour of Patrick Wolfe. London: Verso.
2019. Co-editor. L’inévitable prison / The Inevitable Prison, special issue of l’Année du Maghreb, vol. 20. Aix-en-Provence: MMSH.
2014. How to Accept German Reparations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
2013. Co-editor. Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millenium. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
2010. Editor. Clifford Geertz in Morocco. Routledge.
2008. Co-editor. Waging War and Making Peace: Reparations and Human Rights. Left Coast Press.
2008. Co-translator (Arabic). Fatna El Bouih, Talk of Darkness. University of Texas Press.
2005. The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
2001. Editor. The Living Medina in the Maghrib: The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture, and History. London: Frank Cass.
2001. Co-editor. Women and Power in the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1998. The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1987. The Merchant of Art: An Egyptian Hilali Oral Epic Poet in Performance. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Selected Journal Articles and Chapters in Books
2024. Female Winged Victory Statues in French Algeria. In Breaking the Bronze Ceiling: Women, Memory, and Public Space, edited by Valentina Rozas-Krause and Andrew M. Shanken. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 230-252.
2023. A Settler Colonial Memorial Book: The Agricultural School and Museum of Sidi-Bel-Abbès, Algeria, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 23, no. 2: 241-260.
2023. Commissioning Memorial Reconciliation: The Stora Report and Algeria’s Ottoman Cannon in France, Modern and Contemporary France 31, no.1: 17-32.
2023. From Gramsci’s ‘Malthusian Development’ to Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission: Abdelhay Moudden on the Politics of Cruelty. In Politique et fiction: Mélanges Offerts à Abdelhay Moudden. Rabat: Editions Bouregeg, 2023, pp. 29-40.
2023. Orality and Performance of 1001 Nights. In Approaches for Teaching the 1001 Nights, edited by Paulo Lemos Horta. New York: The Modern Languages Association of America, pp. 161-172.
2022. “Preface,” in Histoire de Sidi-Bel-Abbès by Karim Ouldennebia, Oran: Dar al-Quds, 2022, pp. 5-8.
2022. Le hérisson parlant: Habib Tengour et la littérature orale algérienne. In Les Portes du poème: Hommages à Habib Tengour,edited by Hervé Sanson et Regina Keil-Sagawe. Algiers: APIC, pp. 223-247.
2022. “False Friends?”: On Algeria, the Algerian Jewish Question, and Settler Colonial Studies. In Race, Place, Trace: Essays in Honour of Patrick Wolfe, edited by Lorenzo Veracini and Susan Slyomovics, London: Verso, pp. 55-89.
2021. The Algerian Jewish Woman (La Juive d’Alger): Charles Cordier and Ethnographic Sculpture. Hespéris-Tamuda, « Historical Essays in Honor of Mohamed Kenbib » vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 133-159.
2021. Repairing Colonial Symmetry: Algerian Archive Restitution as Reparation for Crimes of Colonialism? In Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective, edited by Jacqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache, and Caroline Elkins. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, pp. 201-218.
2021. New Moroccan Publics: Prisons, Cemeteries and Human Remains. In Knowledge, Authority and Change in Muslim Societies: Studies in Honor of Dale F. Eickelman, edited by Nadav Samin and Alan Fromherz. Leiden: Brill, pp. 125-156.
2021. On the Wings of the Gallic Cockerel: Ahmed Benyahia and the Provenance of an Algerian Public Sculpture. In Reframing Postcolonial Studies: Concepts – Methodologies – Scholarly Activisms, edited by David D. Kim. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 69-92.
2020. al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah. A Companion to World Literature, edited by Ken Seignurie, 6 vols. John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3:
2020. The Virgin Mary of Algeria: French Mediterraneans En Miroir. History and Anthropology 31: 22-42.
2020. Editor, special issue: “Historic Preservation in North Africa,” Journal of North African Studies, vol. 25, 5.
2019. Other Places of Confinement’: Bedeau Internment Camp for Algerian Jewish Soldiers. In The Holocaust and North Africa. Edited by Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, pp. 95-112.
2018. “The Ethnologist-Spy Was Hanged, At That Time We Were a Little Savage”: Anthropology in Algeria with Habib Tengour. b20: an online journal 3, no. 4:
2018. Praise of the Prophet and Praise of Self: Sirat Bani Hilal and Epic Narrative in Performance, Journal of Arabic Literature 49, no. 1-2: 50-77:
2016. Abraham Serfaty: Moroccan Jew and Conscious Pariah. Jews in Moroccan History and Historiography: Special Issue of Hespéris-Tamuda L1 (3): 113-138.
2016. The Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission: The Promises of a Human Rights Archive, Arab Studies Journal 24/1: 10-41.
2015. The Moroccan Prison in Literature and Architecture. Special issue on prison literature in the Middle East, MERIP / Middle East Report 275/45: 26-31.
2014. Algerian Women’s Būqūlah Poetry: Cultural Politics, Oral Literature and Anti-Colonial Resistance. Journal of Arabic Literature 45: 145-168.
2014. Who and What is Native to Israel? On Marcel Janco’s Settler Art and Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff’s “Levantinism.” Settler Colonial Studies, 4/1: 27-47.
2013. State of the State of the Art Studies: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. In The Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium. Co-edited by Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 3-22.
2012. Visual Ethnography, Stereotypes, and Photographing Algeria. In Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land, and Voyage. Edited by Ian Richard Netton. London: Routledge, 128-150.
2012. French Restitution, German Compensation: Algerian Jews and Vichy’s Financial Legacy. Journal of North African Studies 17/5: 881-901.
2012. Happiness, Human Rights and the Arab Spring. Vital Topics Forum “On Happiness,” edited by Barbara Rose Johnston. American Anthropologist, 114/1: 14-15.
2012. Fatna El Bouih and the Work of Memory, Gender, and Reparation in Morocco. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 8/1: 37-62.
2011. American “Blood Money” and a Question of Reparations. Middle East Report, 259: 44-46.
2009. Edward Said’s Nazareth. Framework: Journal of Cinema and Media, 50/1 & 2: 9-45.
2009. Perceptions, Not Illustrations, of Sefrou, Morocco: Paul Hyman’s Images and the Work of Ethnographic Photography. Journal of North African Studies, 14:3/4: 445-466.
2009. Morocco and Algeria: Financial Reparations, Blood Money, and Human Rights Witness Testimony. In Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy. Edited by Richard A. Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 265-284.
2008. Reparations in Morocco: The Symbolic Dirham. In Waging War and Making Peace: The Anthropology of Reparations. Co-edited by Barbara Rose Johnston and Susan Slyomovics. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 95-114.
2008. Palestinian Remembrance Days and Plans: Kufr Qasim, Fact and Echo (with Waleed Khleif). In Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Kishvar Rizvi and Sandy Eisenstadt. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 186-217.
2008. Témoignages écrits et silences: L’Instance Équité et Réconciliation (IER) marocaine et la reparation. Année du Maghreb. Paris: CNRS Editions, 123-148.
2007. The Rape of Qula, a Destroyed Palestinian Village. In Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. Edited by Ahmad Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod. New York: Columbia University Press, 27-51.
2005. The Argument from Silence: Morocco’s Truth Commission and Women Political Prisoners. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1/3: 73-95.
2005. Morocco’s Justice and Reconciliation Commission. Middle East Report Online:
2005. Morocco: Self-Definition as Self-Determination. In Negotiating Self-Determination. Edited by Hurst Hannum and Eileen F. Babbitt. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 135-157.
2003. “Asig ma’bad” (The Passion of Ma’bad): The Epic Confronts Hilali History. Oriente Moderno 22 (83) n.s.: 335-346.
2003. No Buying Off the Past: Moroccan Indemnities and the Opposition. MERIP/Middle East Report 229: 34-37.
2002. Torture, Truth and Recovery in Morocco. In Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation (Platform 2_Documenta 11). Edited by Okwui Enwezor et al. Ostfildern-Ruit (Germany): Hatje Cantz Verlag, 213-230.
2001. Geographies of Jewish Tlemcen. Journal of North African Studies, 5/2: 81-96.
2001. A Truth Commission for Morocco. MERIP/Middle East Report, 218:18-21.
2001. Sex, Lies, and Television: Algerian and Moroccan Cartoons on the Gulf War. In Women and Power in the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2-98.
1999. The Arab Epic Hero as Outcast, Trickster, and Confidence Man. In Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World. Edited by Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus, and Susanne Wofford. Berkeley: University of California Press, 54-68.
1998. Living Traditions: Arabic. In Teaching Oral Traditions. Edited by John Miles Foley. New York: The Modern Languages Association of America, 266-272.
1996. The Muslim World Day Parade and “Storefront” Mosques of New York City. In Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. Edited by Barbara Daly Metcalf. Berkeley: University of California Press, 204-216.
1995. New York City’s Muslim World Day Parade. In Nation and Migration: The Politics of Space in the South Asian Diaspora. Edited by Peter Van Der Veer. Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 157-177.
1995. Algeria Elsewhere: The Pilgrimage of the Virgin of Santa Cruz in Oran, Algeria and Nimes, France. In Folklore Interpreted: Essays in Honor of Alan Dundes. Edited by Regina Bendix and Rosemary Levy Zumwalt, New York: Garland Press, 337-354.
1997. “Hassiba Benbouali, If You Could See Our Algeria…”: Women and Public Space in Algeria. MERIP / Middle East Report 192 (1995): 8-13. Reprinted In Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report. Edited by Joel Beinin. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 211-219; reprinted in Arab Women: Between Defiance and Restraint. Edited by Suha Sabbagh. Northampton, MA: Interlink, 1996, 211-220.
1994. The Memory of Place: Rebuilding the Pre-1948 Palestinian Village. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 3/2: 157-168.
1994. Performing A Thousand and One Nights in Egypt. Oral Tradition, 9/2: 90-419.
1993. Cartoon Commentary: Algerian and Moroccan Caricatures from the Gulf War. MERIP / Middle East Report Jan/Feb: 21-24.
1993. Discourses on the Pre-1948 Palestinian Village: The Case of Ein Hod / Ein Houd. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 4/11: 27-38.
1993. The Body in Water: American Women and Spa Culture. In Bodylore. Edited by Katherine Young. Knoxville. Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 35-56.
1993. Rebbele Mordkhele’s Pilgrimage in New York City, Tel Aviv and Carpathian Ruthenia.In Yivo Annual, Going Home. Edited by Jack Kugelmass. Evanston: Northwestern University Press and Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, 369-394. Excerpted and reprinted in Carpatho-Rusyn American: A Forum for Carpatho-Rusyn Ethnic Heritage.
1992. Algeria Caricatures the Gulf War. Public Culture 4: 93-101.
1991. “To Put One’s Fingers in the Bleeding Wound”: Palestinian Theatre Under Israeli Censorship. The Drama Review T130: 18-38. Reprinted in Ad-Dad: A Journal of Arabic Literature, 3 (1992): 1-11; reprinted in Arab-Israeli Relations: A Collection of Contending Perspectives and Recent Research, 10 volumes. Edited by Ian Lustick. New York: Garland Press, 1993, 5: 282-303
1990. A Woman’s Life on the Algiers Stage. MERIP / Middle East Report Sept/Oct.
1990. Ritual Grievance: The Language of Woman? Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 5/1: 53-60
1989. Cross-Cultural Dress and Tourist Performance in Egypt. Performing Arts Journal Special issue on Interculturalism 33/34: 139-150.
1987. The Death-song of Amir Khafaji: Puns in an Oral and Printed Episode of Sirat Bani Hilal. Journal of Arabic Literature 18: 62-78
1987. Methodes de transcription et traduction d’une performance de geste orale arabe. In Le Conte. Edited by Pierre Lyon and Paul Perron. Montreal: Didier, 127-139.
1986. Arabic Folk Literature and Political Expression. Arab Studies Quarterly 8/2: 178-185.
Translations
2021. Menouar Merabtene, “Beginnings, the Life & Times of “Slim” aka Menouar Merabtene,” The Markaz Review (August 15):
2021. Nadjib Berber, “The Excellent Journey of Algerian Cartoonist Nadjib Berber,” The Markaz Review (August 15):
2021. Co-translator. Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne, “Boqala,” Ezra: An Online Journal of Translation, 16, no. 2:
2019. Amina Mekahli, Nomade Bûlant (excerpt). ArabLit Quarterly, 2, no. 1: 63-65.
2014. “The Vagabond” by Leila Sebbar (with Kathleen Micham). Jadaliyya, March 27.
2008. Talk of Darkness by Fatna El Bouih (with Mustafa Kamal). Austin: University of Texas Press.
2003. “Arabic: The Silenced Father-Tongue” by Leila Sebbar and “Writing in the Language of the Other” by Assia Djebar (with Isabelle de Courtivron). In In Other Words: Writers on Bilingualism, Creativity and Identity. Edited by Isabelle de Courtivron. New York: St. Martins Press, 19-27 and 101-109.
2002. “The Bridegroom,” (Al-Aris) by Salah El Ouadie: Prison Literature and Human Rights,” Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East. Edited by Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn Early. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 360-365.
2000. “The Flower Bed,” by Abdelfettah Kilito. Mediterraneans 11:37-41.
1997-98. “Three Poems by Waleed Khleif,” Jusoor, 9/10: 508-512.
1997. “The Epic of the Bani Hilal Narrated by Awadallah Abd al-Jalil Ali,” In Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent. Edited by John William Johnson, Thomas A. Hale, and Stephen Belcher. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 240-251.
1995. “Women’s Laments for Children Who Have Died” (with Suzanne Qualls). In Children in the Muslim Middle East. Edited by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 223-225.
1989. “Muhammad Afifi Matar: Poem,” Journal of Arabic Literature, 20. 1988. Poems of Anna Margolin and Bertha Kling, Der Paken-treger (The Book Peddler), 9-10: 55. 1986. “The Poetry of Abderrahman Abnoudy,” Seneca Review, 16/1: 81-90.
Awards & Grants
CAORC-NEH Fellowship (Algeria) 2023-24
Fellow TALIM (Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies) (2020)
Fellowship IMéRA Aix-Marseilles University IAS (Fall 2019)
Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, Distinguished Senior Scholar Award (2014)
Radcliffe Institute/Bunting Fellowship (2002-03)
Elected Fellow, American Folklore Society (2001)
Albert Hourani Book Award by Middles East Studies Association for The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (1999)
Chicago Folklore Prize book award for The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (1999)
Guggenheim Grant (1995-96)
Second Prize in Translation, Yiddish Women Poets from Yiddish National Book Center (1987)
Malcolm H. Kerr Award for Best Dissertation by the Middle East Studies Association (1985)
