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Sayyida Salme
in Our Time

How she speaks to us today

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Meet the Balochs

The Balochs – I don’t believe I have ever met one, not that I know of. Every once in a while, though, a topic will blip onto mainstream media before submerging again under the ceaseless stream of never-ending news. So it was when The New York Times ran a long story last spring about Balochistan in Pakistan.[1] It caught my attention because I know the Balochs[2] from Sayyida Salme’s Memoirs, where they were part of the nineteenth-century Omani-Zanzibari Sultanate. Indeed, Bal

Andrea Emily Stumpf

7 min read

What's in a Name?

Earlier this year, I wrote about the frequent misspelling of Sayyida Salme’s name – her Western spelling of Salme – and how we should take her word for what is correct.[1] It’s her name after all! I did not have room there to digress into other names, so this is now the post for that. Names have meanings and stories and sometimes quirks. Here are some “fun facts,” if you will: Sayyid Said bin Sultan: This is my favorite convolution for English-speaking ears. It is the name of

Culture and Convention

Andrea Emily Stumpf

6 min read

Celebrating a Birthday

At the very end of the twenty-second chapter of her Memoirs, Sayyida Salme tacks on a single, stand-alone sentence: We do not celebrate birthdays. (Memoirs, p. 150) It just pops in and hangs there. Such a curious non-sequitur after her detailed description of the “big festival,” it invites Westerners – who very much celebrate birthdays! – to wonder about this peculiarity. So, of course, I had to look it up. Turns out this is not just habit or preference, but harkens back to I

Culture and Convention

Andrea Emily Stumpf

4 min read

Past-Forward with Sankofa

I always love a good word, especially when it comes with a good image. Some words capture whole worlds in their short alphabetic strokes, sometimes even holding a whole range of time, space, and sentiments. Sankofa is just such a word. The moment I heard it uttered in a recent radio interview I thought: What a word! We need that word! Sankofa is Ghanaian, coming from the Akan people, from centuries ago, and is both a word and one of their many Adinkra symbols.[1] In the Twi l

Culture and Convention

Andrea Emily Stumpf

6 min read

The Perniciousness of War

Most lives on earth have been changed by war. I have no statistics, but even your own life probably bears the marks of warfare. Looking back at your family history, you may well find a time when your ancestors had to absorb the impact of war – land left behind, assets disappeared, or family lost – with consequences that have a long tail. Even now, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, rising gas prices and other impacts are causing adjustments all over this interconne

Humanity

Andrea Emily Stumpf

7 min read

War That Is Simply Satanic

In this time of widening war, it is humbling and horrifying to look back and recognize that the world is still so beset with folly and madness. For all the progress that we, as humanity, aspire to make, we still resort to ferocious aggression against each other. Is it necessary? We display levels of force and destruction as though we cannot help ourselves. I write from the United States where the most powerful nation in the world is also the most destructive, where power is p

Humanity

Andrea Emily Stumpf

7 min read

Translating the Dead

“Translating the Dead” is the name of a panel I attended at the #AWP26 conference and book fair last week. [1] The very fact that this was on the agenda speaks to a greater intentionality and thoughtfulness going into translations today. Today’s sensitivity about translations is a far cry from the turn-of-the-century standards that turned Memoirs of an Arabian Princess into a no-name, somewhat rushed 1888 English translation and a completely distorted 1907 English translati

Translating

Andrea Emily Stumpf

6 min read

A Little Fresh Air

Here’s a topic while it’s still wintry where I live. When the weather is sub-zero outside, I do my best to keep warm inside. I think most people are like that. For some, though, the house needs airing, no matter how low the mercury. Icy wind howling down the lane, frosty streaks on the pane, no worries – just let me open the window and let in some fresh air! This is a characteristically German practice with a German name: Lüften ( Luft is air). The Washington Post recently

Culture and Convention

Andrea Emily Stumpf

6 min read

Call Her by Her Name

Salma, Salama, Salamah, Salima, Salimah, plus other variations, [1] and Salme . Lest there be any doubt: Only the last one is the correct name of the Omani princess that was born on the island of Zanzibar in 1844. No birth record would have told us the Latin spelling, but we do have countless other indications that this is how she spelled her own name for Western usage. That starts with her Memoirs , which Sayyida Salme wrote in German. [2] How can there be so many misspell

Translating

Andrea Emily Stumpf

4 min read

A Culture Shock Christmas

December always feels like a surprise – bam, it’s already here! And so I lurch to the end of the year, maneuvering all the year-end deadlines, while also trying to make room for the holidays. Happy Holidays indeed! Whoever came up with fiscal calendar years must have been a Scrooge. It takes a whole lot of organizing to get gifts and cards in place, if you want to do it right. Those of you who do have my utmost respect and admiration. Much of my holiday shopping gets crammed

East to West

Andrea Emily Stumpf

4 min read

The Opposite of Choice

What happens when we make choices beyond what is allowed or accepted? Last month I wrote a blog post about endless choice, and how we tend to think that more choice means more freedom and more freedom, more choice. [1] Today I am writing about bounded choice, where freedom stops. At some level, we transgress frequently. With so many rules and norms, it does not take much. Every time I walk across an intersection at a red light (especially in Germany, heaven forbid!), I choos

Then and Now

Andrea Emily Stumpf

6 min read

How to Choose?? Die Qual der Wahl

Die Qual der Wahl [1] – it’s a catchy German phrase that captures so much of our Zeitgeist. Have you walked into a store, taken one look, and walked back out, overwhelmed by the number of shampoos on offer – and no earthly idea about what actually distinguishes one from the other, with no soul in sight to give you any insights? Or do you live on Amazon, so you can select from zillions of doormats and backpacks to find just the right size, style, and motif? Or maybe you subsc

Culture and Convention

Andrea Emily Stumpf

5 min read