Author Archives: Laleh Khalili

The Cargo Cults of USA – Part I

Posted on 13 July 2014 by Laleh Khalili

John McPhee has taught David Remnick and Richard Stengel and a few other famous journalists to write, and apparently he is a fixture of The New Yorker, but his work is so much more interesting that those of his proteges, and … Continue reading →

Posted in capital accumulation, infrastructure, labour, logistics, political economy, readings, shipping conditions, ships, transport | Leave a comment

Innovative use of shipping data

Posted on 2 July 2014 by Laleh Khalili

This fascinating little research report talks about how historical shipping logbooks can be used to keep track of environmental data.  These logbooks include “historical logbooks recorded by explorers, whalers and merchants during epic expeditions between 1750 and 1850, including famous … Continue reading →

Posted in methods, shipping conditions | Leave a comment

imaginary cities

Posted on 21 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Hav is like a nested doll.  There is an original fictional travelogue published in 1987 embedded within the arc of a narrative that updates the story originally published in 1987 with “the events”; with the resulting diptych published in 2007.  Then … Continue reading →

Posted in empire, imperialism & colonialism, Middle East, ports, readings | Leave a comment

The Port of Beirut

Posted on 20 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

This gallery contains 23 photos.

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Izzo, Camillieri, Montalbán

Posted on 17 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

I have just finished a prize winning Manuel Vázquez Montalbán detective novel with Pepe Carvalho as its central character, The South Seas.  I was also a devotee of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series (who was named in honour of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán).  And of course … Continue reading →

Posted in ports, readings, the sea | Leave a comment

“A foretaste of annihilation”

Posted on 13 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow Line is an odd novella.  A ghost story, a beautifully symmetrical tale, a strange little fable, or a metaphor for the First World War (as Wikipedia seems to say)? A young man is given command of  his first … Continue reading →

Posted in literature, ports, seafaring, ships, the sea | Tagged | Leave a comment

“no sailor’s card”

Posted on 10 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Imagine a trans-textual “proletarian” protagonist, one that has travelled the world, gets stuck into adventures aboard ships and on land, and has a laconic easy sarcasm and a way with words.  A kind of working class Marlowe with a better … Continue reading →

Posted in bureacuracy, labour, literature, ports, readings, seafaring, shipping conditions, ships, the sea | Tagged | Leave a comment

“a city of many rivers”

Posted on 8 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

It is extraordinarily rare to read someone whose work haunts you and then becomes part of your personal canon.  That you wake in the middle of the night wanting to look at the map of his imaginary geography.  The last … Continue reading →

Posted in literature, Middle East, ports, readings, the sublime | Tagged , | 1 Comment

“…for rivers and seas are not to be regarded as disjoining, but as uniting”

Posted on 4 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

From Hegel through Schmitt to Foucault and onwards, there is a way of thinking about sea and land not as inert backdrop but as factors determining politics, history and the transformation of the world. Hegel’s The Philosophy of History is geographically deterministic … Continue reading →

Posted in empire, imperialism & colonialism, militaries, ports, readings, seafaring, the sea, war | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Lottery of the Sea

Posted on 4 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

With thanks to Michelle Woordward whose 2007 blogpost on Allan Sekula’s Lottery of the Sea brought me here, it seems that Adam Smith has a wonderful passage about the sea which does the familiar two discursive manoeuvres -speaking of the sea … Continue reading →

Posted in labour, political economy, ports, quotations, the sea | Tagged | Leave a comment