A Bali-inspired Musical Suggestion

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On this sunny Friday afternoon, we would like to offer you a musical suggestion for your listening pleasure: Colin McPhee’s Balinese Ceremonial Music for Two Pianos

Colin McPhee was a Canadian composer, pianist, writer and ethnomusicologist born in Montreal in 1900. He spent several years, from 1931-1938, in Indonesia, mostly Bali and Java studying the art and music from these regions; the tones and rhythms of gamelan ensembles inevitably influenced many of his compositions. McPhee wrote a number of books on his experience in Indonesia, including the hefty Music in Bali: A study in form and instrumental organization in Balinese orchestral music.

In this YouTube recording, Colin McPhee performs his piece on piano accompanied by the renowned British composer, Benjamin Britten. Another recording of this piece, as well as other compositions by McPhee, is available through McGill Libraries on CD, and by online streaming: Tabuh-Tabuhun and Symphony No.2, Balinese Ceremonial Music.

Image result for balinese gamelan

Balinese gamelan instruments, from http://www.soniccouture.com

You can read more on the music of Southeast Asia in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, v.4, and on Colin McPhee here, or on these sites:

And for books on gamelan, music and ensembles, see here. For information on l’Université de Montréal’s Gamelan ensemble, Giri Kedaton:

Majallat al-Adab Archives

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The literary and cultural journal al-Adab was founded in 1953 by the famous Lebanese novelist, short-stories writer, journalist and translator Suhayl Idris (1925-2008). A monthly periodical, Majallat al-Adab is still considered one of the leading literary journals.Since 2015, al-Adab has been published electronically. But back issues (1953-2012) are now also available online, on the al-Adab Archives website. Issues can be browsed by date of publication, and articles can be individually downloaded and saved as PDF, or printed.

Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative

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The Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (MEPPI), a strategic multi-year program, launched in 2009 aiming to raise awareness about the value and importance of preservation of the region’s photographic heritage. Since then, it developed into a multi-faceted initiative expanding over research and capacity building objectives.

The Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative consist of 3 parts:

  • MEPPI courses
    Since the beginning of this program, three introductory photograph preservation courses have been held to train collection personnel in the region. Up until now, more than 60 professionals from institutional and private collections in the Middle East benefited from the training. Topics covered are as follow: an overview of the technical history of photography and photographic processes; an introduction to the history of photography; digitization fundamentals; emergency preparedness and response; preservation planning and the care, handling and storage of photographic materials
  • MEPPI survey
    The MEPPI survey focus is on identifying signification photograph collection in the Middle East and North Africa in order to develop an online directory of collections
  • MEPPI Symposium
    Between 2015 and 2017, MEPPI focused on the long-term preservation of photographs in the Middle East. Intensive workshops, and a symposium were held in 2017 on the photographic legacy of the Middle East and North Africa.

Digital South Asia Library

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The Digital South Asia Library makes openly accessible digital materials for reference and research on South Asia. DSAL is a collaborative program of the University of Chicago and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), built upon a two-year pilot project funded by the Association of Research Libraries’ Global Resources Program and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Participants in DSAL include leading American Universities, CRL, the South Asia Microform Project (SAMP), the Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation, the Association for Asian Studies, the Library of Congress, the Asia Society, the British Library, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, MOZHI in India, the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in India, Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Nepal, and other institutions in South Asia. More details on the program are outlined in the grant proposal available in PDF or HTML.
The Digital South Asia Library can be searched and/or browsed according to the following categories:

  • Scholarly reference books with a link to full text dictionaries at Digital Dictionaries of South Asia (DDSA)
  • Images organized by the original collections
  • Maps ranging from historical to topographic
  • Statistical data from the colonial period through the present, available in a variety of formats
  • Electronic catalogs and finding aids for dispersed resources and collections
  • Periodical indexes and document delivery mechanisms
  • Pedagogical books, general scholarly titles, journals and newspapers
  • Other Internet resources.

A selection of Arabic Dictionaries Applications

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Arabic Almanac makes Lane’s Lexicon Arabic dictionary accessible on the App store for iOS devices. Words included in all eight volumes can be searched by looking up for the root letter of the word. This dictionary gives a deeper understanding of a word by providing the meaning of the word, the context with which that meaning is as well as some examples of its uses in literature. This dictionary can be searched either in Arabic, or in Latin characters. Currently, the application only supports Arabic-English translation, however, new versions should include more functionalities.

Al-Mawrid Al-Qareeb is an Arabic-English and English-Arabic Dictionary accessible on the App store for iOS devices and on the Google store for Android devices. With over 33,000 words and many related appendices, al-Mawrid is one of the most advanced dictionaries ever published in the Arab world. The Arabic-English dictionary counts 13,000 entries, the English-Arabic dictionary 20,000 entries, and the English sound module includes 20,000 entries of pronunciation by native speakers. This powerful application offers a variety of convenient search methods (look up for words while reading; full text search; list of similar words in case of misspelling; search for anagrams, etc.), and of useful learning features (English audio pronunciation by native speakers; full linguistic information on words;table of English irregular verbs, etc.)

Almaany.com  is an Arabic to Arabic Dictionary only available on the App Store for iOS devices. This application, designed primarily for offline use, contains summarized results. With active internet connections, search can be broadband to online website.

Özyeğin Üniversitesi Tefrika Roman Tarihi Veri Tabanı

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eResearch@Ozyegin is the institutional repository of Ozyegin University. Established in 2010, it now (November 2017) includes approximately 2,500 articles, proceedings, conference papers, book chapters, theses, lecture notes and more written by authors (faculty, staff, students or groups) affiliated to Ozyegin University between 1970 and 2017. Content can be browse by date, author, title, subject, document type, as well as by Faculty.

Results display as a list from where document can be opened as PDF or in their original published form (i.e. link to journal in which the article was originally published). The right column in the results list indicated the number of citations in Scopus, one of the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.

On the technical side, eResearch@Ozyegin “runs on Dspace, open source software originally developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technolog) in the USA. It is compatible with OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). All items deposited in eResearch@Ozyegin is indexed by Google Scholar, OpenDOAR and ROAR, harvested by OpenAIRE. It uses Dublin Core as metadata elements and the metadata is OpenAIRE and DRIVER compatible.”

The interface is available in both Turkish and English.

Jerusalem Maps

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When complete, Jerusalem Maps should include not only original maps of the city but also links to existing collections of both historical and contemporary maps of Jerusalem. Currently, the website “contains five maps based on a ten-year survey of the old city undertaken by Riwaq: The Centre for Architectural Conservation” which can be downloaded and used by researchers as long as properly referenced.Jerusalem Maps is another of the numerous resources accessible on Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies website, along with Families Interrupted, Al-Quds Archive, or Dreams of a Nations.

e-Marefa: database trial

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From November 7th to December 7th 2017, the McGill Library is trialing e-Marefa which is an integrated database of full text journals, research papers, theses and dissertations, conference papers, etc. covering a wide variety of topics in Physical sciences, Life sciences, Engineering, and Humanities and Social Sciences. The website is in Arabic and English.

In e-Marefa, each specialty has its own database, the most relevant for Islamic and Middle East studies students are highlighted below:

Resources should be accessible to all McGill users with no login required. In case you were asked to login, you may use the following:

  • Username MCGILL
  • Password: marefa@Mc

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Rekhta: An open access collection of sources on Urdu language & literature

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Rekhta.org is a free website established by Rekhta Foundation to promote and disseminate Urdu literature with a focus on Urdu poetry. The website’s content consists of texts in Devanagari and Roman scripts as well as Urdu script.

This website provides access to a large and unique online repository of Urdu Poetry with more than 30,000 Ghazals and Nazms authored by over 2,500 Urdu poets from the last three centuries.

For the purpose of preserving rare and popular Urdu books, Rekhta initiated the digitization of Urdu literature, both poetry and prose.

Rekhta.org “has a large number of features that make it extremely user-friendly and provides the reader unparalleled convenience in the ability to browse, search and find relevant content with its customized powerful search facility. It also has the unique feature of an in-built glossary that provides the meaning of every word at just a click. In order to give the uninitiated reader a flavour of the diction and pronunciation, a large number of compositions have been recorded in the voice of poets and professionals and have been provided along with the text.”

Moreover, Rekhta has recently presented the complete works of two great Urdu Poets, Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib, as well as all Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories.

Another section that was added recently is Rekhti, which is Urdu Shayari composed by men employing women’s language.

The interface is available in English, Hindi and Urdu.

The Journal of Islamic Ethics

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The Journal of Islamic Ethics is a full Open Access online journal sponsored by the Research Center of Islamic Legislation and Ethics affiliated to the College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar, and accessible from Brill Online Books and Journals platform.

The Journal of Islamic Ethics focuses “on on the ethical approaches embedded in Islamic philosophy, theology, mysticism and jurisprudence as well as Islamic civilization in general, and, more particularly, on the principles and methods (to be) followed in applying these approaches to various sectors of contemporary social life” (…) such as: “Arts, Environment, Economics, Education, Gender, Media, Medicine, Migration & Human Rights, Politics and Psychology.”