An Invitation to Laughter: A Lebanese Anthropologist in the Arab World
By Fuad I. Khuri and Richard Antoun
4/5
()
About this ebook
For the late Fuad I. Khuri, a distinguished career as an anthropologist began not because of typical concerns like accessibility, money, or status, but because the very idea of an occupation that baffled his countrymen made them—and him—laugh. “When I tell them that ‘anthropology’ is my profession . . . they think I am either speaking a strange language or referring to a new medicine.” This profound appreciation for humor, especially in the contradictions inherent in the study of cultures, is a distinctive theme of An Invitation to Laughter, Khuri’s astute memoir of life as an anthropologist in the Middle East.
A Christian Lebanese, Khuri offers up in this unusual autobiography both an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective on life in Lebanon, elsewhere in the Middle East, and in West Africa. Khuri entertains and informs with clever insights into such issues as the mentality of Arabs toward women, eating habits of the Arab world, the impact of Islam on West Africa, and the extravagant lifestyles of wealthy Arabs, and even offers a vision for a type of democracy that could succeed in the Middle East. In his life and work, as these astonishing essays make evident, Khuri demonstrated how the discipline of anthropology continues to make a difference in bridging dangerous divides.
Related to An Invitation to Laughter
Related ebooks
Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOverlooking the Border: Narratives of Divided Jerusalem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVarieties of Muslim Experience: Encounters with Arab Political and Cultural Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Spite of Partition: Jews, Arabs, and the Limits of Separatist Imagination Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Window into Modern Iran: The Ardeshir Zahedi Papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives—A Selection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMigrant Dreams: Egyptian Workers in the Gulf States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsColonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference in a City of Myth, 1948-2012 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMongrels or Marvels: The Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOttoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian: Islamic Law and Custom in the Courts of Ottoman Cairo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut's Frontiers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingssources of contemporary genocide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Exception: New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dream: A Diary of a Film Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHizbullah: The Story from Within Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAuthoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConsuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Middle East Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Biography & Memoir For You
A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leonardo da Vinci Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Reacher Reading Order: The Complete Lee Child’s Reading List Of Jack Reacher Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Eating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Rediscovered Books): A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for An Invitation to Laughter
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This a slender memoir of a Lebanese-American anthropologist's experiences plying his trade throughout the Middle East, studying power structures throughout the region. The reason behind the title as explained by Khuri is that whenever he explained what he did for a living, his friends and relatives back home in Lebanon would laugh uproariously at the thought of such an oddly named profession.Khuri, who received his PhD from the University of Oregon, is charmingly self-depreceating in the telling of his story, obscuring the fact that his work was groundbreaking (his book Emirs and Imans is essential for understanding the differences between the regions various sects, including how their theology informs their politics). Even in this book, there are little, almost throw away insights that forced me to reconsider some of my notions about the Middle East.You really should read it.