While Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) solutions are being implemented in a growing number of areas in Morocco (e.g., e-gov., e-learning, e-commerce, etc.), the area of documentary heritage is still struggling to make the leap into the digital age. The corpus of Moroccan documentary heritage is estimated to 60,000 manuscripts hosted at a number of public libraries and private repositories--mostly within religious institutions. The main collections are those of the Bibliothhque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (BNRM) in Rabat (11,330 manuscripts of more than 30,000 titles) and the Library of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez (5,600 manuscripts, 3,157 of which occur in several volumes and 3,810 are considered as rare). They are written almost entirely in Arabic of various scripts (Berber in Arabic alphabet and Hebrew constitute less than 1%). The subject matter of these manuscripts covers several disciplines: Sacred Texts (Korans), Islamic religious sciences (Exegesis of Koran, Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and Jurisprudence), Arabic Grammar and Lexicography, Arabic Poetry, Hagiography and Genealogy, Islamic Theology and Mysticism, Philosophy and Logic, Historiography, Medicine, Astronomy and Astrology, Mathematics, and Agriculture and Natural Sciences. Sadly, many of these manuscripts are either literally disintegrating (poor conditions of preservation and direct handling of originals) or simply smuggled outside the country; ICTs offer the best solution for the digital documentation and preservation of documentary heritage before it is lost to Morocco and the world. In this paper I will discuss the issue of using ICTs to digitize and catalogue ancient manuscript collections hosted at three heritage libraries ("bibliothiques patrimoniales") in Morocco: al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez, The Ibn Yusuf Library of Marrakech, and The Library of the Great Mosque of Meknos. I will also address how the Moroccan ICTs initiatives could integrate other regional and international initiatives such as the one launched by the Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage in Cairo and the UNESCO for the documentation and preservation of the Arab World Heritage.

Al-Maqrizi's topographic history of Cairo has never been translated into a European language, and I argue that one reason is the difficulty of presenting it as a standard book. The place-oriented methodology of al-Maqrizi (as stated in his opening section) and the demands placed upon a reader (to possess a mental map of Cairo in the 15th century) call for a re-thinking of the way a text such as the Khitat should be published. My work developing a website that presents a digital map of Cairo along with translated sections of al-Maqrizi's Khitat has given me an opportunity to consider some of the broader possibilities related to the adaptation of a rich historical text to the Web. My presentation will discuss the ways that the recent 6 volume Arabic text by Ayman Fu'ad attempts to become a multi-media experience, including photos and maps, but finally makes plain the limitation of a print edition of this work. The continued development of the website as a mode of scholarly publication has broadened the possibilities for presenting the Khitat. The theoretical work of Jerome McGann on the construction of websites that are not simply pale substitutes for book format, but that expand our notion of a text, underlies my argument. My effort will be directed at presenting the ways that the form of the website allows for a re-imagining of the Khitat along lines that are harmonious with the stated goals of al-Maqrizi. This project naturally participates in discussions about the Islamic city, as a presentation of a city will reflect a theory. The Khitat of al-Maqrizi raises questions similar to the medieval biographical compendiums discussed by Michael Chamberlain in Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus. Just as the biographical compendiums point to the social networks that defined the ulama, so the Khitat in its topographical method presents a cityscape whose elements are related to individuals among the ruling class and the ulama. This social character of the Khitat is in turn important to consider in any visual presentation. I am submitting this paper as a poster presentation since it will include illustrations of past attempts to "textualize" the Khitat and Cairo. In addition I will show examples of my own work to adapt the Khitat to the medium of the Web.

Villains, Victims, Labels and Euphemisms: An Analysis of Al Jazeera Terror Terminology Variation by Event and Audience Abstract As terrorism is inseparable from ideology, it comes to no surprise ideology affects terror reporting. News agency ideology is often considered as a homogeneous whole that produces a consistent, reliable and predictable bias. However as ideology arises from the churning confluence of many divergent political, nationalistic, cultural, and religious influences, consistency is more often situational rather than universal. News reporting agencies must be responsive to the ideological perspectives of their patrons and their audiences. Such ideological sensitivity has many manifestations. This work examines the situational variations in ideological perspective as expressed by lexical selection exhibited by Al Jazeera in coverage of three terror venues; Iraq, Palestine, and most recently India, in their Arabic language editions. The comparative analysis contained within this work reveals lexicological variations and inconsistency from one venue to another that result from the conflicting ideological demands of the intended audiences as well as the news networks governmental and non-governmental patrons. The comparative analysis of this work incorporates elements of Critical Discourse Analysis - The Theory of Semantic Macrostructures and Theory of Ideology both by van Dijk, as well as the Discourse-Historical Approach of Wodak. Semantic Microstructure theory examines the structure of the work in order to illuminate the internal considerations active at the levels of writing and editing. Van Dijk's theories are applied to examine the cultural, social, nationalistic, political, and ideological factors affecting news coverage of these three terror venues. Wodak's approach expands the analysis with consideration of historical and political background of the researcher and the newspapers under consideration. This combination of theoretical elements constitutes a basis for Comparative Arabic discourse analysis with a focus on socio-linguistic analysis of text and rhetoric, rather than the more common functional Systemic Linguistic analysis or grammar theory considerations.

Visual media produced by Islamist groups remains a largely untapped area of study within the field of the study of modern Muslim socio-political movements. Yet, it is an area that can yield a great deal of information, particularly with regard to the ideological differences between transnational militant (jihadi) and religious-nationalist movements. It is often said that visual media reflects the politics and worldview of its producers, and this is certainly the case with the visual media produced by Islamist movements. This paper will examine some of the key ideological differences between transnational jihadi and Islamist-nationalist movements through the lens of the portrayal of the performative act of martyrdom and "the martyr" in their respective visual discourses. Although both groups have developed a poetics of martyrdom that is similar in some ways, significant differences between them can be seen here as well. Islamist-nationalist movements such as the Palestinian HAMAS and Lebanese Hizbullah frame "the martyr" as a national figure who dies in the cause of a defined, geographically-limited nation-state. Religious elements contained within the visual discourse of martyrdom of these groups are subsumed within a larger national narrative. In contrast, transnational jihadi movements such as Al-Qa'ida "Central" frame "the martyr" as a "traveling" figure who dies in the cause of an imagined, geographically-expansive identity, one which envisions the creation of a transnational imagined state, "the" caliphate. Martyrdom is seen not only in terms of "death," the closing of an individual's existence in this world, but also as ritualistic, redemptive opening to their new eternal life in the world to come, the "gardens of Paradise" (Janah al-Firdaws). Martyrs exist in virtual shrines in cyberspace, places where commemorative and celebratory rituals are performed by users on web forums produced or affiliated with these movements. For some users of these forums, particularly among transnational jihadis, aesthetics of martyrdom have evolved into a kind of pornography of violence, a celebration of death and killing in "defense" of the occupied and humiliated. In this pornography of violence, other ideological messages, such as anti-imperialism and anti-occupation, are subjugated to images of death and destruction as well as the attempt to recover lost pride and honor through performative acts of violence coded as martyrdom. The paper will be based on careful analysis of artwork, photography, and videos produced by transnational and Islamist-nationalist movements and their supporters, most of which are drawn from official and affiliated web sites.

Many Arab media centers and research institutes today are producing copious amounts of scholarship on the subject of media activism, the use of digital media and its interpretations, media policy, political representations in new media, and other social investigations. In this roundtable discussion, we would like to define, more clearly, the complicated make-up of 21st century Arab media. How does the scale of digital media, its ease of transfer and deletion, its hypervisuality, its reach across languages and wide public access inform the vibrancy and proliferation of a larger array of 'Media' including traditional sources such as print journalism, television, cartoons and graffiti from the Arab world? How are media platforms like Virtual Gaza, the Electronic Intifada, R-Shief, or even more traditional outlets such as Arab, Media, and Society mediated by the formal aspects of their digital composition? The emergence of digital media has revolutionized the functions of authorship, knowledge production and communication, and the processing of information in a manner that demands attention be paid to the medium as agent. Integrating art, technology, and reporting in this artistic production, the digital medium itself functions as a creative and dynamic producer, not just reporter, of knowledge. In this discussion, we would like to investigate how visual studies, software studies, social computing, and media arts practice can contribute the study of media and technology in the Arab world, perhaps offering openings to better understanding of the literature published on blogs, social networking sites, Twitter feeds, YouTube, and other new media. This digital form, by its nature, attracts non-hierarchical knowledge production. Ideally, this conversation would take place in a roundtable discussion in order to work towards creating a new authoritative but participatory role in an on-going conversation among networked publics--one that resonates with web culture and the co-production of knowledge. Possible topics for discussion would include: 1- The problems and failures of digital media productions 2- Case-study examples of public media platforms and digital environments 3- Education and digital literacy in the Arab world 4- Archiving and national memory as a growing field in digital media 5- Digital methodology as it informs virtual political space