Art and Web Links
The Alif Institute in Atlanta, Georgia is an American education, culture, arts, and enrichment center with a focus on the Arab culture and Arab Americans.
http://www.alifinstitute.org/home.html
American-Arab Anti Defamation Committee Home Pages. If you're a teacher, look to their education pages for clarification of facts and lesson plans. (For example, I have included Turkey and Iran on my "Arab" Storytelling pages. I learned on this site that that "Arab" defines a linguistic connection, not geographical proximity or Islamic heritage, as I had broadly considered it. However, since the heritage of story and storytelling tradition that prevails in the Middle East embraces the non-Arab countries of Turkey and Iran, I'm keeping them.)
http://www.adc.org
Arabian Nights home pages; includes texts of the stories from Lang and Burton editions and a history of the Nights by Daniel Beaumont.
http://www.arabiannights.org
Aubrey Beardsley's cover design for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves might just fit your style as wallpaper for your desktop.
http://xbox.weblogs.us/poster/ali-baba-cover-design-for-825747.html
Children's Literature (including folktales) and the Arab World are covered in this issue of The Looking Glass, an online children's literature journal. Start with the editor's "Frame of Reference" and don't miss Sabeur Mdallel's scholarly view of the sociology of children's literature in the Arab World.
http://www.the-looking-glass.net/rabbit/v8i2
About Culture and Storytelling, Aida Hasan says ". . .The fascination of folk tales lies not only in their ability to provide entertainment, but also in their antiquity, and their ability to provide a sense of unity and identity in a family." Her short article includes three folktales.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/arab_culture_and_identity/26784
Many of Edmund Dulac's images for the Arabian Nights and Sinbad the Sailor are gathered on this page.
http://www.artpassions.net/dulac/dulac.html
Homepage of the Institute of Near Eastern and African Studies (INEAS) in Cambridge, MA, USA offers bits of cultural information plus a schedule of their current performances and projects.
http://www.ineas.org
Maxfield Parrish's cover illustration for Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith edition of Arabian Nights
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0684195895/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-3011756-6219005#reader-page
Roots & Wings presents "Tapestry," an Arab-Jewish Storytelling Dialogue created by Audrey Galex and B.J. Abraham aimed at cross-cultural understanding.
http://www.rootswings.com/tapestry.htm
Saudi Aramco World Magazine
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200503/
Story-Lovers can go to this site, scroll to the bottom of the home page and click on "Searching Out Stories" for archives of story bones, commentary, links and experiences from the very real, very wise storytellers who participate in the listserver storytell. Look for Arab Stories.
http://www.story-lovers.com
Uysal-Walker Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative located at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. It speaks for itself; if not, my article on Warren and Barbara Walker will.
http://aton.ttu.edu
Middle Eastern dancer Sherezzah Bint al-Waha's list of 35 editions of the Arabian Nights with publisher, dates, title, and samples and comments about the illustrators.
http://www.beledy.net/sherezzah/ANBYPUB.HTM