Min Awrak Zaki Nassif من أوراق زكي ناصيف

This book is an account of the efforts of Dr. Edwin Lewis, a professor at the Syrian Protestant College (now the American University of Beirut) in the late nineteenth century to modify the system of Western musical notation to fit Arabic music (and more specifically, church music). In this work, Shafik Jeha addresses how musical notation was adapted to correspond with the right-to-left direction of Arabic musical texts, and includes the reactions of some Arab composers to the revised method of notation. How did this new method of music notation appear on the musical scene? How important was it to musicians in the Arab world? How did it spread? What problems did it face? What were the consequences of the new musical notation method? What were its advantages and its disadvantages? Shafik Jeha answers all these questions and many more in this book, which is divided into three parts: the first deals with the emergence of Arabized musical notation, the second addresses the development of this new type of notation, and the last elaborates on its dissemination.

This book showcases the work of twenty featured artists from the first group exhibition of contemporary ceramists in Lebanon, and thus is the first of its kind. Innovation in fine arts at AUB goes back at least to 1929, when the University hosted first solo exhibition in Lebanon with the work of Lebanese artist Mustafa Farroukh. ​This is a publication of the Project Steering Committee for an Arts Center at AUB.

​This book represents a dialogue between image and word, and experience and thought. In this sequence of twenty pairs of images and texts spanning forty years of the artist's personal growth, it offers readers a rare view of the nature of expression. The intuitive choice of couplets and the way they flow reveal singular aspects of the creative process. The book invites readers on a journey aimed at understanding art through the transformative shift that comes from combining experience and thought, looking within while also observing from without.​

The first book of its kind in Lebanon, Mute Movements, documents the emergence of a performance art scene in Lebanon. The book illustrates the collective work of students and artists under the direction of Cornelia Krafft, former assistant professor at AUB. Captured in high-quality photographs and narrated through the performers' own words, Mute Movements invites the reader to embark on an inspirational journey through modern-day Lebanon as seen through the eyes of these young artists striving to confront their internal and external challenges on the personal, national, and regional levels. Their “mute" performances, situated in provocative locations, demanded attention and triggered debate. Played out in unorthodox settings – abandoned buildings, war ruins, along the sea-shore, in city streets and run-down cinemas – these performances required almost as much of the spectators as of the players with their fundamental questioning of issues of collective relevance: social responsibility, personal and regional identity, cultural heritage, censorship, conflict, freedom, and repression. Across the pages of the book, each performance unfolds in documentary-like fashion. The underlying theme, the evolution of performance art in Lebanon across five fertile years of artistic endeavor, lays the groundwork for years to come. While the focus is Lebanon and its youth, the bigger picture is a work in progress which is applicable far beyond the borders of one small country, making Mute Movements a valuable as well as highly enjoyable reference work. ​The overall minimalistic aesthetic and design of the book envelopes an extraordinary sample of strong artistic encouragement through contemporary education in the fields of performance, set design, and visual arts; the result is a document of international importance.

In commemoration of the first 20 years of the Graphic Design Program at the American University of Beirut, this book profiles the professional work of many of its graduates, whose pursuit of excellence in design has transformed the face of the region.

This Is the Time. This Is the Record of the Time is a hybrid anthology of commissioned art and written works on the subject of capturing time and temporality, representing a collaboration between the American University of Beirut Art Galleries and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. ​There is a common perception that time is accelerating. The need to pause, slow down, and regain ground has become a necessity, to grasp our “Runaway World," as Anthony Giddens aptly terms it. Critically evaluating this precious commodity, time, with thoughts grounded philosophically, historically, and in terms of media theory allows for a more in-depth discussion on the perception of time and how the act of recording it affects its perception and treatment. The experience of time is mediated by the technologies that record it. Quoting the introduction, “Thinking about Time: Proposition" by one of the editors, Angela Harutyunyan (p. 23), the book proposes “that to think time and to experience the time of thinking makes oneself out of joint with time or, rather, with the notions of temporality that dominate our epoch."