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Syrian Episodes: Sons, Fathers, and an Anthropologist in Aleppo
When Princeton anthropologist John Borneman arrived in Syria's second-largest city in 2004 as a visiting Fulbright professor, he took up residence in what many consider a "rogue state" on the frontline of a "clash of civilizations" between the Orient and the West. Hoping to understand intimate interactions of religious, political, and familial authority in this secular republic, Borneman spent much time among different men, observing and becoming part of their everyday lives. Syrian Episodes is the striking result.
Recounting his experience of living and lecturing in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, John Borneman offers deft, first-person stories of the longings and discontents expressed by Syrian sons and fathers, as well as a prescient analysis of the precarious power held by the regime, its relation to domestic authority, and the conditions of its demise. Combining literary imagination and anthropological insight, the book's discrete narratives converge in an unforgettable portrait of contemporary culture in Aleppo.
We read of romantic seductions, rumors of spying, the play of light in rooms, the bargaining of tourists in bazaars, and an attack of wild dogs. With unflinching honesty and frequent humor, Borneman describes his encounters with students and teachers, customers and merchants, and women and families, many of whom are as intrigued with the anthropologist as he is with them. Refusing to patronize those he meets or to minimize his differences with them, Borneman provokes his interlocutors, teasing out unexpected confidences, comic responses, and mutual misunderstandings. He engages the curiosity and desire of encounter and the possibility of ethical conduct that is willing to expose cultural differences.
Combining literary imagination and anthropological insight, Syrian Episodes offers an unforgettable portrait of contemporary culture in Aleppo.
Recounting his experience of living and lecturing in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, John Borneman offers deft, first-person stories of the longings and discontents expressed by Syrian sons and fathers, as well as a prescient analysis of the precarious power held by the regime, its relation to domestic authority, and the conditions of its demise. Combining literary imagination and anthropological insight, the book's discrete narratives converge in an unforgettable portrait of contemporary culture in Aleppo.
We read of romantic seductions, rumors of spying, the play of light in rooms, the bargaining of tourists in bazaars, and an attack of wild dogs. With unflinching honesty and frequent humor, Borneman describes his encounters with students and teachers, customers and merchants, and women and families, many of whom are as intrigued with the anthropologist as he is with them. Refusing to patronize those he meets or to minimize his differences with them, Borneman provokes his interlocutors, teasing out unexpected confidences, comic responses, and mutual misunderstandings. He engages the curiosity and desire of encounter and the possibility of ethical conduct that is willing to expose cultural differences.
Combining literary imagination and anthropological insight, Syrian Episodes offers an unforgettable portrait of contemporary culture in Aleppo.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 6, 2014
I was very excited about reading this book, as a Syrian who has been forced to leave Syria, I am homesick and “an academic take on father son relations in Syria” sounded like an amazing premise for a great book.
This book turned out to be a huge disappointment. In many places the author narrates his encounters with Syrians as a zoologist would narrate his encounters with orangutan’s in their natural environment with an air of extreme superiority “ I tell a friend that the people in Aleppo do not look particularly patient at five o’clock, but more like animals, using the Arabic word hiyawan, which is more antithetical to the human then its English counterpart, more disparaging in tone” p4, he refuses to talk to a taxi driver and ask him to slow down in fear of “angering” him, and explains things to his students, but never expects them to truly understand . Furthermore, he treats the “Syrian person” as an exotic erotic that he has leeway to do with things he would not dare do back home. He speaks of trying to seduce a boy named Mustafa who he says is of high school age, the author is at the time fifty two years old by his own admission. To make things worse he interprets almost all extensions of friendship towards him as being sexual in nature. The fact that the family “let” their teenage daughter talk to him must be insinuating they want him to marry her, in fact Syrians are mostly very anti cross cultural marriages, and would never ever encourage a match between their Muslim daughter and this Christian foreigner. A man who grabbed his hand is, in his opinion, flirting with him even though it is widely known that Syrian men hold hands, hug, and kiss each other on the cheek all out of expressions of friendship, something that seems difficult for people of the west to comprehend or even believe.
What frustrated me was that the author is a very good writer, and clearly an intelligent anthropologist as he makes intelligent and shrewd observations in some “episodes. This frustrated me because it made aware that this book I disliked so much could have been a million times better.
I would not recommend it.
This book turned out to be a huge disappointment. In many places the author narrates his encounters with Syrians as a zoologist would narrate his encounters with orangutan’s in their natural environment with an air of extreme superiority “ I tell a friend that the people in Aleppo do not look particularly patient at five o’clock, but more like animals, using the Arabic word hiyawan, which is more antithetical to the human then its English counterpart, more disparaging in tone” p4, he refuses to talk to a taxi driver and ask him to slow down in fear of “angering” him, and explains things to his students, but never expects them to truly understand . Furthermore, he treats the “Syrian person” as an exotic erotic that he has leeway to do with things he would not dare do back home. He speaks of trying to seduce a boy named Mustafa who he says is of high school age, the author is at the time fifty two years old by his own admission. To make things worse he interprets almost all extensions of friendship towards him as being sexual in nature. The fact that the family “let” their teenage daughter talk to him must be insinuating they want him to marry her, in fact Syrians are mostly very anti cross cultural marriages, and would never ever encourage a match between their Muslim daughter and this Christian foreigner. A man who grabbed his hand is, in his opinion, flirting with him even though it is widely known that Syrian men hold hands, hug, and kiss each other on the cheek all out of expressions of friendship, something that seems difficult for people of the west to comprehend or even believe.
What frustrated me was that the author is a very good writer, and clearly an intelligent anthropologist as he makes intelligent and shrewd observations in some “episodes. This frustrated me because it made aware that this book I disliked so much could have been a million times better.
I would not recommend it.
May 23, 2009
Orientalism, when in an experiential form, is rather alright, Borneman asserts in the preface to his book. This is not textual orientalism, where there are claims at a universal knowledge regarding the Other, but only a fascination with the unknown, he continues. And during a mid-life crisis moment, he packs up, and leaves for the heart of the Orient, beginning a life in the souk of Aleppo.
I have not read Borneman's writings on Germany, which I understand to be his primary field site, but this book stands out to be a collection of field notes - in other words, encounters with different individuals from the Souk, and the people from the university where he is to teach. Borneman is afraid of the traffic jams, he does not enjoy the chaos which seems to characterize his first encounters with the university in particular, and the city in general, and he looks for a grand narrative that will explain Syria, all at once. For instance, did you know that Syrian men tend to sleep with their mothers until they are twelve? Or that they tend to dye their hair once it begins to whiten on the sides? Coming from an anthropologist, who enjoys boasting about his Harvard PhD and tenure track job at Princeton, such comments stand out to be ridiculous. Even during the moments in which he is summarizing the academic debates he has with students, for instance, what is the difference between literature classes here and the US, he is didactic, prepared to provide answers like, here you do not use psychoanalysis to further understand books, for the uninitiated. At a psychoanalytical moment, the reader of the book would easily find out that perhaps this man who constantly talks about his marriage, is suffering from heart-break, and is utterly lonely. Hence his explanation for why it's great to be divorced: you can travel to the middle east and chat with people from the souk - to which the Syrian informant answers, I'd rather hang out with my family than fly to these countries.
I found this book rather distasteful, and yet it may serve as an interesting piece of travel writing for some audiences.
I have not read Borneman's writings on Germany, which I understand to be his primary field site, but this book stands out to be a collection of field notes - in other words, encounters with different individuals from the Souk, and the people from the university where he is to teach. Borneman is afraid of the traffic jams, he does not enjoy the chaos which seems to characterize his first encounters with the university in particular, and the city in general, and he looks for a grand narrative that will explain Syria, all at once. For instance, did you know that Syrian men tend to sleep with their mothers until they are twelve? Or that they tend to dye their hair once it begins to whiten on the sides? Coming from an anthropologist, who enjoys boasting about his Harvard PhD and tenure track job at Princeton, such comments stand out to be ridiculous. Even during the moments in which he is summarizing the academic debates he has with students, for instance, what is the difference between literature classes here and the US, he is didactic, prepared to provide answers like, here you do not use psychoanalysis to further understand books, for the uninitiated. At a psychoanalytical moment, the reader of the book would easily find out that perhaps this man who constantly talks about his marriage, is suffering from heart-break, and is utterly lonely. Hence his explanation for why it's great to be divorced: you can travel to the middle east and chat with people from the souk - to which the Syrian informant answers, I'd rather hang out with my family than fly to these countries.
I found this book rather distasteful, and yet it may serve as an interesting piece of travel writing for some audiences.
January 9, 2014
The ostensible topic of Syrian Episodes is the role of authority in contemporary Syria, whether in the relationships between fathers and sons, in gender roles, or in religion and government. However, John Borneman did not set out to write an objective depiction of Syrian culture, nor did he attempt to assume the position of an impartial observer. Rather, Borneman openly expresses his opinions and subjective biases, both to the Syrian people he interacts with and to the readers of his book. As the title of the book implies, Borneman describes his everyday interactions with Syrian people as a set of episodes or vignettes.
Part of his reason for taking this stance might be that he was on a Fulbright grant to teach at Aleppo University, meaning that he was interacting with his students not purely as an ethnographer, but also as a professor. Some readers might take offense at the "professorial" role that Borneman takes even outside the classroom, lecturing students about his beliefs regarding marriage, sex, and religion. Others might argue that Borneman walks a fine line between travelogue and ethnography, for example when he discusses his sexual encounters with strangers in the Souk.
It is certainly difficult to come away from Syrian Episodes with many concrete conclusions, but this was how Borneman intended it. He sought not to "extract from Syrians what they know," but rather to, "“understand something of their experience of authority by engaging in that experience with them. (pg. 221)” He maintains a reflexive stance, looking for patterns in his experiences and applying his knowledge of anthropological theory, but he is reluctant to construct explanatory theories in fear of oversimplifying or stereotyping the culture. I found this to be an enjoyable read, and a good example of reflexive ethnography.
Part of his reason for taking this stance might be that he was on a Fulbright grant to teach at Aleppo University, meaning that he was interacting with his students not purely as an ethnographer, but also as a professor. Some readers might take offense at the "professorial" role that Borneman takes even outside the classroom, lecturing students about his beliefs regarding marriage, sex, and religion. Others might argue that Borneman walks a fine line between travelogue and ethnography, for example when he discusses his sexual encounters with strangers in the Souk.
It is certainly difficult to come away from Syrian Episodes with many concrete conclusions, but this was how Borneman intended it. He sought not to "extract from Syrians what they know," but rather to, "“understand something of their experience of authority by engaging in that experience with them. (pg. 221)” He maintains a reflexive stance, looking for patterns in his experiences and applying his knowledge of anthropological theory, but he is reluctant to construct explanatory theories in fear of oversimplifying or stereotyping the culture. I found this to be an enjoyable read, and a good example of reflexive ethnography.
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July 15, 2008a western princeton anthropologist with no academic background on syria decides to explore aleppo for the year, we'll see where this goes...
June 30, 2011
Read this in a day. Simply the best "academic" book I've read, because it's highly readable and you get out of it whatever level of understanding you are looking for.
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