Noura Erakat and Mouin Rabbani, editors, Aborted State? The UN Initiative and New Palestinian Junctures. Washington, DC: Tadween Publishing, 2013.

The New York Times calls the adoption of the Common Core State Standards “the most far-reaching experiment in American educational history.” The initiative, which has been implemented in forty-five states, the District of Columbia, and four US territories, promises to be “the first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education” by setting clear standards in mathematics and English language arts.  However, this project carries many of the same promises, ideas, and goals of previous attempts at reform. Is it just another set of standardized tests that schools are being forced to apply to students?

Tadween recently interviewed David Hirsch, librarian for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angles, about the Tahrir Documents, a project which collected and translated material from the protests at Tahrir Square in Cairo. This interview is part of Tadween’s new campaign to highlight the role of universities in knowledge production and preservation.

By Elliott Colla

Mona Prince, Revolution is My Name. Cairo: n.p., 2012.

Reading, ’Riting, Revolution

Reading Egyptian literature this week might seem odd. What does literature—even literature about revolution—have to tell us about this particular moment? After all, revolutions are not stories. They are not poems. Revolutions are not texts nor are they primarily textual in nature. Revolutions are events. They are projects and processes, made and sustained by people insisting on living lives of dignity.

Tadween Publishing brings you the latest news and analysis from the publishing and academic worlds that relate to pedagogy and knowledge production.

News and stories with a focus on the publishing industry, education, and technology from across the Arab world.