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AbstractThis paper explores the concepts and norms of gender and sexuality in Ehmedê Xanî's 17th-century mathnawi poem Mem û Zîn, nowadays regarded as the Kurdish national epic. A reading of this poem with the aid of the conceptual tools of gender studies and the history of sexuality reveals how different its norms and concepts are not only from modern Kurdish ones, but also from those of classical Persian literature. Although the poem does not hint at any taboo concerning male love for beardless boys, it does display a remarkable asymmetry between male and female same-sex desire; it also displays distinct views of legitimate and transgressive sexuality. Thus, this poem encourages a more historicizing view of the gendered and sexual dimensions of modern (Kurdish and other) nationalism, and a greater attention for the distinct characteristics of vernacular literatures within the premodern 'Persianate cosmopolitan.'

In this article, I argue that discussions of whether any Kurdish nationalism may be found in Xanî's Mem û Zîn proceed from rather anachronistic assumptions. Through an exploration of the language ideology found in this work, I demonstrate that the work's mystical meaning interacts in rather complex ways with its political views. In particular, the king or prince plays a crucial, if ambiguous, political, linguistic, and eschatological role in the poem. Thus, Mem û Zîn may be read as a specimen of vernacularisation rather than romantic nationalism.ABSTRACT IN KURMANJINetewe, Padişahî, û Ziman: Siyaseta xumam di Mem û Zîna Ehmedê Xanî deDi vê gotarê de, îddiaya min ew e ku nîqaşa li ser pirsa hebûna netewegeriya kurdî di Mem û Zîna Xanî de ji pêşferzên pir anakronîstîk têne pêş. Bi rêya veçirandina îdeolojiya zimanî ya di vê berhemê de, ez nîşan didim ku wateya sofîgerane ya berhemê bi çendîn awayan di bîr û boçûnên siyasî de rengê xwe vedibîne. Bi taybetî, padişah an jî mîr roleke -herçend xumam jî be- bingehîn a siyasî, zimanî, û axretî digêre di berhemê de. Wisa jî, Mem û Zîn dibe wek nimûneyeke edebî ya bikaranîn û berbelavkirina zimanê xwemalî (vernacularisation) bê dîtin, ne ya netewegeriyeke romantîk.ABSTRACT IN SORANINetewe, paşayetî û ziman: Siyasetî narrûnî Mem û Zînekey Eḧmedî XanîLem babeteda, min argumêntî ewe dekem ke giftugoy ewey ke aya hîç core nasyûnalîzmêkî kurdî lenaw Mem û Zînî Xanîda heye le grîmaney enekronîstî (mufareqey zemenîyewe) serçawe degrêt. Le miyaney kinekirdinî aydiyolojyay zimanî naw ew berhemey Xanî, min ewe pîşan dedem ke manay mîtolojyayî berhemeke be şêwazêkî alloz karlêk legell cîhanbînîye siyasîyekeyda deken. Betaybetî, padşa yan mîr, eger be narrûnîş bêt, rollêkî serekîy siyasî, zimanewanî we axîretî (îsketolojî) le şî'rekanî da debînêt. Bemcore, Mem û Zîn dekrêt wek nimûney 'ewamgerayîy zimanî (vernacularisation) nek wek nasyûnalîzmî romansî bibînrêt.ABSTRACT IN ZAZAKINetewe, Mîreyîye û Ziwan: Polîtîkayê zafmanîdarî yê Mem û Zîna Ehmedê XanîNa meqale de ez îdîa kena ke munaqeşeyê "Tirêm eserê Xanî Mem û Zîne de rêçê neteweperwerîye yenê dîyene yan ney?" hîna zaf hîpotezanê anakronîkan ra yenê pêra. Pê kefşkerdişê îdeolojîya ziwanî ya nê eserî, ez nîşan dana ke manaya eserî ya mîstîke hîna zaf bi hewayêko kompleks tesîr kena fikranê ey ê sîyasîyan ser o. Bitaybetî qiral yan kî mîre şîîre de rolêko sîyasîyo ziwannaskîyo eskatolojîko muhîm la nedîyar kay keno. Coka merdim şeno Mem û Zîne sey neteweperwerîya romantîke ney, la hîna zaf sey nimûneyê pêroyîkerdişê ziwanî biwano

This obituary sketches life and work of the prominent Iraqi social scientist Faleh Abdul Jabar with a focus on his relevance for Kurdish studies. The article briefly discusses his major publications and his continuing dialogue with Marxist social theory. ABSTRACT IN KURMANJIJi bo bîreweriya Faleh Abdul Cebar (1946-2018)Ev yadname wêneyê jiyan û xebata zanyarê Iraqî yê navdar Faleh Abdul Cebar dikêşe, bi taybetî berê xwe dide ser girîngiya wî bo lêkolînên kurdî. Gotar bi kurtî behsa berhemên wî yên sereke û diyaloga wî ya berdewam ligel teoriya civakî ya marksîst dike. ABSTRACT IN SORANILe yadawerî da: Felaḧ 'Ebdul Cebar (1946-2018)Em pirsenameye wêney jiyan û berhemî twêjerî komellayetîy diyarî 'Eraqî Felaḧ 'Ebdul Cebar dekêşêt legell terkîzkirdine ser peywendîy ew be dîrasey kurdîyewe. Babeteke be kurtî giftugo le ser billawkirawe serekîyekanî dekat we dayelogî berdewamî ew legell tiyorî komellayetî marksîstî.

This paper discusses three religious communities in Northern Iraq that are characterized by the shared fate of having been targeted by the 2014 "Islamic State" (IS) offensive. These events dramatically brought home the vulnerability of these communities in post-Saddam Iraq; but the precarious status of these groups was already painfully visible even to the most casual observer prior to theISonslaught. In this paper, I trace the rather different trajectories of these—initially broadly comparable—minority groups, with a focus on the changing articulation and legitimation of religious leadership. I do so by pointing out some of the longer-term tendencies among these groups, while treating religious leadership in terms of patronage.

The Russian/Soviet experience raises complex general questions concerning orientalism, conceptual hegemony, and the politics of (post-)colonial knowledge. Russia was not an empire in Said's sense, and drew much of its orientalist categories from non-imperialist German sources; the Soviet Union was explicitly anti-imperialist, and was dedicated to the emancipation of subaltern classes and nationalities. Yet Soviet orientalism in part reproduced hegemonic categories of "bourgeois" knowledge, notably concerning language and national identity. This becomes especially clear in the case of Soviet studies of Kurdish, a language subaltern with respect to Persian, Arabic, and, increasingly, Turkish. In the 1920s and early 1930s, native scholars like Erebê Shemo, Qanatê Kurdo, and Heciyê Cindî pioneered the creation of both an alphabet and a literature in Kurdish and of scholarly linguistic studies. Their work was shaped (and encouraged) by Nikolaj Marr's rejection of the idea of genetic links between Indo-Persian languages, and of the reification of "national characters." Marr's "japhetic" linguistics dovetailed with Stalin's nationality policies in the 1920s and 1930s; it is rightly rejected as unscientific, but it did have positive emancipatory effects. It criticized ethnocentric and racist assumptions in contemporary Indo-European linguistics, and emphasized the value of spoken subaltern vernaculars like Ossetian and Kurdish against hegemonic written languages like Sanskrit and Persian. It also had the paradoxical effect of both countering bourgeois nationalism and encouraging national consciousness. The article concludes with a discussion of how the Soviet experience may affect our view of the Gramscian concept of hegemony and of the linguistic turn in later postcolonial studies.

Eli Teremaxi's Serfa Kurmancî has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. It was dismissed by Auguste Jaba as a text of "minor interest," but in fact it is of paramount importance both for the study of the Kurdish language and for the history of Kurdish learning. Not only does it contain the oldest extant detailed remarks on Kurdish grammar, in all likelihood preceding even Garzoni's 1787 Grammatica; it is also among the first examples of Kurdish-language prose writing. The rise of prose texts of learning in Kurdish in the eighteenth century is an aspect of so-called "vernacularization," i.e. the use of a vernacular language for new purposes of written literature and learning. Vernacularization is, this article argues, a crucial prerequisite for the rise of a national language. The article also briefly discusses traces of a similar development in some of Teremaxî's near-contemporaries.

Abstract
In the thirty years since the appearance of Metaphors We Live By, cognitive linguistics has developed into a flourishing autonomous branch of inquiry. Interdisciplinary contacts, however, have largely been restricted to literary studies and the cognitive sciences and hardly extended towards the social sciences. This is the more surprising as, in 1970s anthropology, metaphor was seen as a key notion for the study of symbolism more generally. This contribution explores the cognitive linguistic view of social and cultural factors. Lakoff and Johnson appear ambivalent regarding the relation between culture and cognition; but they share the belief, elaborated in detail by Gibbs and Turner (2002), that cultural factors can be accounted for in terms of cognitive processes. This view runs into both methodological and philosophical difficulties. Methodologically, it assumes that cultural factors can be reduced to cognitive processes; philosophically, it boils down to a Cartesian emphasis on inner experience explaining outer phenomena. There are substantial anti-Cartesian strains both in contemporary philosophy and in a major current of Eighteenth- Century philosophy. The latter, in particular, emphasized the importance of embodiment and metaphor in cognition. As an alternative, I will sketch a more consistently semiotic- and practice-oriented approach that proceeds from linguistic practices to cognitive processes rather than the other way around. It takes practices as irreducibly public and normative; on this approach, so-called linguistic ideologies (Silverstein 1979) play a constitutive role in both linguistic practice and language structure. This alternative builds on recent developments in linguistic anthropology and the work of Peirce and Bakhtin. It suggests a different look at the relation between cognition, language, and social practice from that suggested in cognitive linguistics.