Category Archives: ports

A love story far from the sea

Posted on 16 July 2014 by Laleh Khalili

This beautiful little love story has some extraordinary bits about the Syrian revolution, the subsequent civil war(s), love, families, sectarian sentiments, and the sea: On the second day of Ramadan, I come home from work to find Jesus, Maalik, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Middle East, ports, readings, seafaring, the sea, war | 4 Comments

Jayaben Desai

Posted on 13 July 2014 by Laleh Khalili

In this moving obituary of an extraordinary woman, Jayaben Desai, this passage stood out: Desperate for work, the newly arrived accepted long hours and low wages, though the need to do so, Desai said, “nagged away like a sore on … Continue reading →

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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 →

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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 →

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“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 →

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“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 →

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“…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