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Open Access Publications from the University of California

About

Lamma is an academic journal that aims to provide a forum for understanding critically the complex ideas, values, social configurations, histories, and material realities in Libya. Recognizing, and insisting on, the urgent need for such a forum, we give attention ­to as wide a range of disciplines, sources, and approaches as possible, foregrounding especially those that have previously received less scholarly attention. Lamma is a space where these fields interact and draw from one another. It is a platform where scholars and students from inside and outside of Libya gather to redefine and reshape “Libyan Studies.” For these reasons the journal takes its name from the Arabic word لمّة (lamma) “a gathering.”

Submissions are currently being accepted. To submit a piece, or to make other inquiries, please write to: lammajournal@gmail.com

Issue cover

Articles

Re-Centering Libya’s History: Mediterranean Bulwark, Defender of Africa, or Bridge between Continents?

This paper discusses Libya’s geo-historical identity from the Italian colonial period until the end of the Qaddafi regime. It specifically looks at characterizations of the country as Mediterranean or African in the different periods. By examining the historiographic discourse in Italian and Arabic as well as the political aesthetics and symbolisms connected with the colonial and the Qaddafi regime, respectively, the article shows how varying characterizations were linked to geo-political agendas. Finally, it presents a third characterization: that of Libya as a connecting link between regions and continents, which has become prominent in more recent times.

 

يناقش هذا البحث الهوية الجغرافية التاريخية الليبية بدءاً بالإحتلال الإيطالي حتى فترة نهاية حكم القذافي. وتختص الدراسة بالنظر إلى خصائص ليبيا كدولة أفريقية وشرق أوسطية في فترات زمنية مختلفة. بعد تفحيص سياق التأريخ بالإيطالية والعربية، بالإضافة إلى الجماليات السياسية والرمزية المرتبطة بعهدي الإحتلال والقذافي على التوالي، فإن الدراسة تظهر أنً خصائص مختلفة ترتبط بأجندات سياسية-جغرافية. وتقدم هذه الدراسة .خاصية ثالثة: ليبيا أصبحت حديثا حلقة وصل بين مناطق وقارات بصورة واضحة

The Construction of Virility and Performance of Masculinities in the Language Practices of Young Men in Tripoli

This article analyzes the socio/linguistic construction of gender in Arabic in Tripoli, showing how young Libyan men make use of a type of virile and masculine speech as part of their performance of gender. Analyzing the interactions of a group of young men through participant observation and a resulting corpus of spontaneous recordings of speech, this analysis shows how, in their self-expression, certain young Libyan men perform their speech practices towards hegemonic, gendered goals, exalting virilizing values and foregrounding heterosexism by means of transgressive language practices. These language practices express domination, heterosexism, and homosociality, permitting them to distinguish themselves from women and others discursively and interactively constructed as inferiors, in order to validate their existence as dominant males.

 

تحلل هذه الدراسة التركيبة الإجتماعية/اللغوية للهوية الجنسية في طرابلس وكيف يستخدم الشباب الأسلوب الفحولي والرجولي في الكلام للتعبير عن هويتهم. كما تسلط الدراسة الضوء على كيفية تفاعل هؤلاء الشباب في مجموعات من خلال تحليل مراقبة المشاركين في الدراسة ونتائج تسجيل لغتهم العفوية. تظهر التحليلات أيضاً كيف يعبر هؤلاء الشباب، بأسلوبهم الخاص، عن هويتهم للوصول لأهداف مهيمنة ويمجدون بها قيمهم الرجولية و تأكيد التفرقة الجنسية من خلال ممارسة الأسلوب الطغياني. هذا المنهج اللغوي يؤكد هيمنتهم الإجتماعية يفصلهم عن فئة النساء وغيرهم بشكل استطرادي وتفاعلي على أن غيرهم من فئات المجتمع أقل شأناً منهم .وبذلك تعزز من هيمنتهم ووجودهم كذكور

 

“The Whole Shadow of Man”: Alessandro Spina’s Libyan Epic

Including two translated excerpts from The Fourth Shore, Volume 2 of The Confines of the Shadow

A Pool of Water: Perspectives on the Libyan Revolution

Review article of: Hisham Matar, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between; Peter Cole and Brian McQuinn, eds., The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath; Christopher Chivvis, Toppling Qaddafi: Libya and the Limits of Liberal Intervention; Ethan Chorin, Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution; Maximilian Forte, Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa; Lindsey Hilsum, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution; Alison Pargeter, Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi;