TMR 7 • TRUTH?
Poetry Against the State
Gil Anidjar reviews A Bibliography for After Jews and Arabs, and suggests that "our problem is that we have stopped listening to the poets."
Poet in Pakistan: the Flamboyant Carolyn Kizer
Biographer Marian Janssen reveals the big, brash, blonde feminist writer and poet Carolyn Kizer, who fascinated and shocked Pakistanis—and introduced the ghazal to America.
The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era
Hadani Ditmars remembers what Baghdad was like following the second Gulf War in 2003, when she toured Abu Ghraib with Robert Fisk.
France’s Fake Islamo-Leftist Crisis
One of France's prime "Islamo-leftist" suspects, Raphaël Liogier, explains why the term does not apply and what the true danger is (hint: it's not Islam).
Torture Is the Nasty Center of the 9/11 Case at Guantánamo
In our centerpiece this month, Lisa Hajjar takes us inside the war on terror and the dystopia that is Guantánamo.
A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza
A spoken word poem from the author of The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Arsonists' City.
Secrets, Leaks, and the Imperative of Truth and Transparency
Stephen Rohde on how widespread government secrecy, alongside the punishment of truth-tellers, betrays fundamental principles underlying democracy.
The Truth About Syria: Mahmoud’s Story
Mischa Geracoulis shares the story of an art project among refugee children that helped Mahmoud Ismail through hard times.
Dinner at the White House, in the Lion’s Den
Francisco Letelier searches for the truth about his father's assassination in Washington DC while excavating US government complicity in its cover-up.
Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue
Farah Abdessamad reviews a new English translation of Impostures from Basra-born Al-Hariri that revives the "eloquent rogue" genre of classical Arabic literature.
Academics Decry French Attacks on “Islamo-Leftists”
Hundreds of French and Anglophone academics are speaking out against what they call the French government’s “conspiracy theory” and “witch hunt” of so-called Islamo-leftists.
The New Gatekeepers: How proprietary algorithms increasingly determine the news we see
Would you trust an algorithm to sell you a used car? Andy Lee Roth peers under the hood of Big Tech and finds plenty we should be worrying about.
On Literacy and the Lack Thereof
Marcus Gilroy-Ware, the author of After the Fact, The Truth About Fake News, warns that literacy and numeracy are on the wain.