| This is truly a superb book. A must for all those interested in Syria, the Middle East, Islam, and the encounter with other. John Borneman is a keen observer and an original reader of his surrounding. The book consists of a series of encounters that take place during his stay in Aleppo, one of the most ancient and sophisticated city in the Arab world (Syria). Borneman analyzes social interactions, focusing on the relation between politics, economics, family relations, and sexual desire. All come together in this beautifully written book that transports us to a different world while enabling us to see and understand it. This work is for those who are willing to accompany the anthropologist on his quest for meaning as he meanders through cultural difference and the various subtleties that provide a place and a people with their identity. The book is thoroughly self-reflexive, constantly interrogating the limits of knowledge while keenly reproducing fascinating encounters that place us at the center of the experience. |
When Princeton anthropologist John Borneman arrived in Syria's second-largest city in 2004 as a visiting Fulbright professor, he took up residence in what many consider a "rogue state" on the frontline of a "clash of civilizations" between the Orient and the West. Hoping to understand intimate interactions of religious, political, and familial authority in this secular republic, Borneman spent much time among different men, observing and becoming part of their everyday lives. Syrian Episodes is the striking result. Recounting his experience of living in Aleppo's ancient marketplace and lecturing at its modern university, he offers deft, first-person stories of the longings and discontents expressed by Syrian sons and fathers. Combining literary imagination and anthropological insight, the book's discrete narratives converge in an unforgettable portrait of contemporary culture in Aleppo. We read of romantic seductions, rumors of spying, the play of light in rooms, the bargaining of tourists in bazaars, and an attack of wild dogs. With unflinching honesty and frequent humor, Borneman describes his encounters with students and teachers, customers and merchants, and women and families, many of whom are as intrigued with the anthropologist as he is with them. Refusing to patronize those he meets or to minimize his differences with them, Borneman provokes his interlocutors, teasing out unexpected confidences, comic responses, and mutual misunderstandings. He engages the curiosity and desire of encounter and the possibility of ethical conduct that is willing to expose cultural differences. Syrian Episodes is a sophisticated exploration--precise, vivid, ironic--of the predicaments of Arabs in a contemporary world. |
