Sabra Webber

The Ohio State University, Comparative Studies & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Emerita

The Ohio State University, Comparative Studies, Faculty Member

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Professor Webber, who has a Ph.D. in Anthropology, Folklore from the University of Texas, Austin, an MA in Folklore from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in English Literature from Occidental College is a native of San Francisco. She has been studying in the western Arab world for over 30 years and served for three years in the Peace Corps in North Africa. She is the author of the award-winning book, Romancing the Real: Folklore and Ethnographic Representation in North Africa, the children’s book—lissigharina (To Our Children)-- which is a collection of Tunisian children’s nursery rhymes, children's rhyming games and Tunisian women's lullabies published in Tunisia, the edited volume, Fantasy or Ethnography?: Irony and Collusion in Subaltern Representation and Folklore Unbound: a Concise Introduction, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. She is the recipient of several national research grants including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Institute, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Social Science Research Center as well as a nine month Rockefeller Research Residency at Washington University in St. Louis. She has served on the Board of the American Institute for Maghribi Studies and as book review editor for anthropology and history for The International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. While at The Ohio State University she has directed over 30 theses and dissertations. Her current research projects are "Traveler as Trickster: Sir Richard Burton," "Tunisian Riddles in Socio-cultural Context," "surprise, non-sequitur, revolution: Folklore as Resistance," "A Storied Life or the Education of an Amreekeeya," "A Cultured Man: Dr. Alan Jabbour," and "Folk You, Colin Kaepernick! Grass Roots Resistance in Non-Folk Games."
Supervisors: Richard Bauman, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Robert Fernea

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Gender on the Market: Moroccan Women and the Revoking of Tradition, by Deborah Kapchan. (New Cultural Studies) 325 pages, notes, b&w photographs, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. $19.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8122-1426-9

Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 1999

Tunesien

Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an Islamic Master:Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an Islamic Master

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Jun 1, 1995

The text is preceded by an introduction describing the manuscript itself, Chief Gibson, Goldenwei... more The text is preceded by an introduction describing the manuscript itself, Chief Gibson, Goldenweiser, the history of scholarship on the text, the process of reelicitation, and the text format. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the text. The opening, which describes the founding of the League, is summarized carefully, with useful explanatory notes. The second part of the text lays out the rituals of the Condolence Council, the ceremony held to mourn the death of a chief and install his successor. This ceremony is extremely complex, lasting, as Woodbury notes, anywhere from six to eight hours when performed. She provides an effective analysis of its structure and detailed description of the performance of the rituals that comprise it. She demonstrates how the ritual structure is reflected in grammatical structure. Because it was necessary to work from a dictated manuscript rather than an oral performance, Woodbury notes that certain aspects of rhetorical style could not be recovered; nevertheless, drawing primarily on annotations in the original, on observer accounts of performances, and tape recordings of fragments, she is able to make a number of inferences about the formal oratorical style. Surveys follow of attestations of the text in English and in Iroquois languages (Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga) of the League Tradition and the Condolence Council in particular, and of observer accounts of performances. Three appendices conclude the volume, the first a list of abbreviations, the second a comparison of the Goldenweiser and modern orthographies, and the third a very helpful, comprehensive discussion of Onondaga phonology. This is a monumental work, the result of years of collaboration between a highly skilled, dedicated linguist (Woodbury) and extraordinarily gifted speakers (Webster, Henry, Thomas, Williams). It is certain to be consulted and treasured by generations of Iroquois people, linguists, and other scholars.

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Celia E. RothenbergSpirits of Palestine: Gender,Society,and Stories of the Jinn

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2008

social attitudes that favor the male breadwinner, has entrenched gender gaps in formal employment... more social attitudes that favor the male breadwinner, has entrenched gender gaps in formal employment, and increased women’s participation in the informal work sector. Given that maintaining good social relations and meeting the basic needs of daily life are what families must prioritize, the socially conservative forces that allow people to get by frustrate eff orts to develop much beyond mere survival. While Living Palestine may be of most interest to those concerned with Palestine and the Israeli occupation, it should also attract the attention of scholars working on confl ict zones, gender, domestic economy, and kinship more generally. Th is book contributes to the growing trend in anthropological studies of war (broadly construed) that forego the typical focus on the spectacular aspects of hostilities for a more holistic study of the systemic eff ects of long-term, chronic violence, and the ways in which people manage (and get used to) brutal conditions.

An Expert System on Assessing Rockburst Risks for South African Deep Gold Mines

Expert systems are methods that can cope with rock engineer's expertise effectively.An expert... more Expert systems are methods that can cope with rock engineer's expertise effectively.An expert system on assessing rockburst risks for South African deep gold mines is described.Expertise was represented by rules, frames and mathematical models integratively. About 9.50rules was built in the knowledge base, which can be learned by the suggested learning algorithm.A new uncertain reasoning algorithm was proposed. According to the features such as depth be-low surface, energy release rate (ERR), excess shear stress (ESS), geological structure, faceangle with structure, distance from structure, extent of mining, mining type, width of bracket pil-lar, stope width, local support, regional support and gully support, rockburst risk is assessed ei-ther”Low”, ”Moderate”, ”High” or ”Severe”.Turbo Prolog. The results of testing cases showA computer program system was developed byits applicability of the system.

Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, by Lila Abu-Lughod. 317 pages, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles1986. $37.50

Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Dec 1, 1989

Daughters of Tunis: Women, Family, and Networks in a Muslim City

Middle East Journal, Oct 1, 2003

Preface Acknowledgments Notes on Language Use and Transliteration of Tunisian Arabic * Introducti... more Preface Acknowledgments Notes on Language Use and Transliteration of Tunisian Arabic * Introduction * Mens and Womens Spaces in Tunis * Tea and Visits: Weaving the Web of Exchange * Marriage and Family: Miriams Kin Exclusive Network * Sherifas Street: Migration, Residence Patterns, and Kin Networks * Intimate Economies: Nuras Neighbor Network * Womens Religious Celebrations: Status, Class and Hannans Friendship Pattern * Conclusions Appendix 1: The Survey Appendix 2: Tables Glossary Glossary of Tunisian Kinship Terms Suggestions for Further Reading References Index

Appendix: Transliterated Dialogues

Romancing the Real, 1991

Romancer le réel : histoires populaires racontées à Kélibia, Tunisie

MOM Éditions, 1997

Webber Sabra jean, Davis Taïeb Hannah. Romancer le réel : histoires populaires racontées à Kélibi... more

Folklore Unbound: A Concise Introduction

1. Kelibia in Space and Time

Romancing the real

How does a community maintain and pass on a sense of its identity, in the face of ongoing change ... more

Les fonctions communicatives des devinettes de Kélibia (Tunisie)

Analyse morphologique et des metaphores d'un echantillon parmi celles qui ont ete recueillies... more

Introduction: Hikayat and Social “Structures of Feeling”

3. Dramatis Personae: Walis, Dervishes, Heroes, and Clowns

Notes on Transliteration and Performative Aspects of Narration

2. The Structure of Male Storytelling Events

Preface: The Presence of the Past or Romancing the Real

4. In Defense of (Maghribi) Folklore

Romancing the Real, 1991

Sabra Webber

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