In focussing on the lives of Palestinian women, the documentary film Marageeh (Swings) offers a gendered critique of a society under occupation, writes Amira Howeidy

The humour in this new Palestinian anthology of stories is just one of its many surprises, writes Suzanne Joinson

Last year, the American University in Cairo inaugurated an annual lecture dedicated to the memory of Edward W Said (1935-2003) to coincide with his birthday. This year's Edward Said Memorial Lecture, entitled "Resistance literature revisited: From Basra to Guantànamo", was given by Barbara Harlow on 31 October 2006. Harlow, professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, is currently chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, AUC. Her publications include Resistance Literature (1987), Barred: Women, Writing, and Political Detention (1992), and After Lives : Legacies of Revolutionary Writing (1996). Below we publish extracts from the lecture

By Mursi Saad El-Din