Search Results

November 13, 2025 The Mediterranean Charm: Why Writers and Painters Keep Coming Back to This Sea On a tranquil Mentonnais weekend, two weeks before the midterms rush, I boarded a train bound for Antibes. As I wandered through its cobbled streets, the Mediterranean shimmered next to me, breathing light into every corner of the city; a scene not so different from that of my hometown in Alexandria, Egypt. Apparently, this feeling of familiarity with this vast blue sea is nothing new—a feeling shared by many people no matter on which shore one is standing. Read More November 10, 2025 “When They Tell You to Sing, You Just Sing.”: The Khmer Rouge’s Musical Manipulation of Cambodian Society “If you want to eliminate values from past societies, you have to eliminate the artists.”, reflects Prince Norodom Sirivudh of Cambodia, in the 2014 documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”, recounting the systematic erasure of music from Cambodian society under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Read More October 23, 2025 Is being a Virgin as Cool as Being a BRAT? : A Review of Lorde’s Latest Studio Album BRAT was summer. BRAT was coming to terms with your suppressed desires, the hate you bore and the complicated friendships you were a part of. The fun, the ugly and the embarrassing. It was about the euphoria of partying into the light of early summer mornings and the walks of shame back home. Drug abuse, sex, and all other kinds of highs of life was what BRAT encompassed. It encouraged difficult conversations about fertility and friendship, revealing that fame doesn’t equate feelings getting spared or receiving grace. Read More October 5, 2025 Is Romance Dead?: How Reality TV Shows Reflect Modern Dating How does watching strangers fall in love on national television reflect the most complicated parts of our emotional lives – dating? The transition from heartful romcoms to dating shows such as Love Island, Love is Blind or Too Hot to Handle perhaps indicate romance has died. Read More September 30, 2025 Politicizing the Heartland: The Conservative Instrumentalization of Country Music Given country music’s association with the American South and its conservative majority, it is difficult to ignore the correlation of country music's revival with the rise of the far-right in the US. However, can one link these phenomena? Is country music inseparable from conservatism? Read More September 28, 2025 Americans on the Riviera At the start of the 1920s, although hard to imagine today, the Riviera was practically deserted during the summer months. Hotels and restaurants catering to the European elite would close shop after spring, as their wealthy patrons would leave for colder climates. The Murphys were the first to convince hotels in Antibes to stay open during the summer months, as a way to host their American friends. Thus beginning the transformation of the Riviera into the summer destination it is today. Read More September 28, 2025 Threads of Memory: The Story of Palestinian Tatreez In Palestine, threads carry stories. Each stitch of tatreez — the traditional Palestinian embroidery — embodies memory, identity, and resilience. On a quiet afternoon, an elderly woman sits with fabric in her lap, weaving patterns passed down through generations. Read More September 27, 2025 The Pen, the Camera, and the Microphone: The Egyptian Kit of Soft Power The truth is this: Egypt has never ruled merely by sword or throne. Its empire was always one of imagination, where a pen could be sharper than steel, a song louder than artillery, and a camera brighter than any spotlight. The world may forget armies, but it remembers stories. And Egypt has always known how to tell them. Read More April 30, 2025 “Clean Girl” or “White Girl”? Exploring Racial Double Standards in the Fashion Industry It’s time to embrace these styles as more than just ‘trends’, but as a long-lived facet of Black culture. Recognizing the enormous influence that Black communities have had on fashion and aesthetics will allow for the long-overdue dismantling of structural hegemonies, which not only ignore Black culture but also build an alarming double standard between races in the fashion industry. Read More April 30, 2025 Thrifting and the Price of Exclusion: Gentrifying Secondhand Stores in Toronto The question of immorality does not pertain to the act of thrifting itself, but how the thrift environment has been redesigned to serve corporate interests at the expense of those it was initially designed to support. Read More March 31, 2025 Who is “Saving” Europe? In the digital age, the responsibility of verifying and trusting information falls on us, the users. While content under the branding of Save Europe might not be falsified, it is deliberately presented with emotional imagery, evocative music and slogans—blurring the line between political activism and propaganda. Read More March 31, 2025 Fasting, not a dividing element after all Fasting in different religions does not divide us. It just makes us realize how similar we are, how we have the same needs, temptations and desires. And that’s precisely what I realized when I came to Menton, a campus full of diversity—ethnically, culturally and religiously. At the core, we are all the same… Read More March 31, 2025 Love is in the Air? Une Lutte Contre le Vent If the campus is about 70% female and 30% male, and of the women, 75% are available and heterosexual, and of the men, about half are gay and maybe 25% are in a relationship, how many available, straight men does that leave for the single women, keen and looking? No need to do the math. We are not all EcoSoc majors. To put it simply, the answer is not a lot. Read More March 31, 2025 Le racisme aussi peut être pluraliste Sans qu’on puisse mettre un trait d’égalité entre le RN et la Nouvelle droite, il faut saisir l’apport essentiel de cette mouvance à l’extrême-droite tant sur le plan idéologique que sur la formation intellectuelle de ses cadres. La Nouvelle droite est une entreprise de blanchiment car derrière le ‘pluralisme’ dont elle se targue, se cache directement le nazisme et le néo-fascisme terroriste. La grande blanchisserie aujourd’hui est le Rassemblement national. Read More March 31, 2025 With Prada and Ten Protagonists on to a new self-destruction feminism Feminism does not always require being vocal, an activist, or engaging in mass mobilization. Sometimes resisting is retreating—in the choice to withdraw from cultural pressures knowingly. Dissociative feminism expands the scope of what feminist action can entail. Read More March 31, 2025 A Review of the Oscars The Oscars, once regarded as the highest award form of artistic recognition, have increasingly been subject to scrutiny over their selection process, inclusivity and cultural relevance. While the ceremony continues to attract global attention for viewers tuning in from all over the globe, one cannot help but ask: is the Academy truly honoring the best in cinema, or is it simply reinforcing the industry’s biases and political inclinations? Read More March 31, 2025 The Southern Preacher’s Goth Daughter If the South is so deeply religious—it quite literally has been termed the ‘Bible Belt’ during cultural and political descriptions—why is it so drawn to horror? The answer lies in the paradox that envelops faith itself. To believe in heaven is to acknowledge that hell also exists. The belief in salvation is not complete without the recognition of sin. The South, with its religion and belief in divine punishment, has always and will always be a place where horror feels natural. Read More March 31, 2025 Trends In Tourism: Solo Travelling and Slow Tourism For us, Sciences Pistes, there are endless options, often just a click away on a lazy Monday morning, when the teacher is particularly uninteresting. The flight tickets are cheap, flying is fast and time is limited. We, Sciences Pistes, are respectful, interested in different cultures and exploring the hidden gems—not just the touristy areas. Read More February 28, 2025 All Roads Lead To Hollywood: What Do Golden Globes Teach Us About The Film Industry? So what do the Golden Globes teach us about the film industry? Apart from the obvious elitism and unreasonable standards it sets in most aspects of our lives, it highlights the necessity of appreciating one's work. In some cases, it emphasizes the importance of sharing happy moments with those who understand and support you. Perhaps from a more career-focused point of view, the awards also present a wonderful opportunity for filmmakers, actresses, and actors to get widespread recognition. Read More February 28, 2025 Pouring One Out for the Pub “Sweet Caroline, Good times never felt so good” are the words that personify the pub, but as reality hits, how much longer will the croons of Neil Diamond sound true? Read More

The Menton Times is the independent student newspaper of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Menton campus. Vlogging Live From Kabul: The Insights and Absurdities of YouTube Conflict Tourism In the past few years, an increasing number of intrepid content creators are documenting their journeys to places of conflict. They acquire rare visas, hire local tour guides, and point iPhone cameras through the streets as they seek to capture the ‘real’ version of these countries—places whose very essence is often reduced to fearful headlines and apocalyptic imagery. This phenomenon, known as conflict tourism, ranges from visiting historically troubled areas to entering zones of active conflict, and has taken on an entirely new significance in the age of vlogging. This Week @ The Menton Times “When They Tell You to Sing, You Just Sing.”: The Khmer Rouge’s Musical Manipulation of Cambodian Society #Gen Z 212 Digital Resistance: How Young Palestinians Use Social Media to Preserve Memory التعليم في تونس: بين المساواة المنشودة والواقع الجندري في الصفوف الدراسية Beyond Ceasefires: Building Lasting Peace with Art Nostalgie historique et la génération Z: liaisons dangereuses ? The Mediterranean Charm: Why Why Writers and Painters Keep Coming Back to This Sea The Mediterranean Charm: Why Writers and Painters Keep Coming Back to This Sea On a tranquil Mentonnais weekend, two weeks before the midterms rush, I boarded a train bound for Antibes. As I wandered through its cobbled streets, the Mediterranean shimmered next to me, breathing light into every corner of the city; a scene not so different from that of my hometown in Alexandria, Egypt. Apparently, this feeling of familiarity with this vast blue sea is nothing new—a feeling shared by many people no matter on which shore one is standing. التعليم في تونس: بين المساواة المنشودة والواقع الجندري في الصفوف الدراسية #GenZ 212 When Luffy’s Jolly Roger was hoisted from Nepal’s Singha Durbar palace, it instantly became a symbol of something larger. Over the past few months, a wind of protests has swept across the globe. From Nepal to Madagascar, Kenya to Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines and Morocco: the youth, unwilling to inherit a broken system, have taken to the streets to prove that their future is daring and won’t be silenced. Quand le Caire faisait rêver le monde arabe, l’âge d’or du cinéma egyptien. Feature: Cinementon Dans son ouvrage Arab Cinema : History and Cultural Identity (1998), Viola Shafik affirme que l’Egypte était le premier pays arabe à produire une industrie cinématographique dont la production était supérieure, en quantité, à celui des autres nations arabes. Nostalgie historique et la génération Z: liaisons dangereuses ? Des salles de bals étincelantes de Bridgerton à l'aesthetic Regency Core sur les réseaux sociaux, la génération Z semble obnubilée par une période qu’elle n’a jamais vécu. Comment peut-on expliquer cette fascination pour un monde vieux de deux siècles ? What Happened to Freedom of Speech? Beyond Ceasefires: Building Lasting Peace with Art Feature: MedMUN From Shatila to Menton, artist Maryam Samaan turns puppets and knitting into spaces for healing and dialogue. Is Being a Virgin as Cool as Being a BRAT? : A Review of Lorde's Latest Studio Album Theres No Place Like Home BRAT was summer. BRAT was coming to terms with your suppressed desires, the hate you bore and the complicated friendships you were a part of. The fun, the ugly and the embarrassing. It was about the euphoria of partying into the light of early summer mornings and the walks of shame back home. Drug abuse, sex, and all other kinds of highs of life was what BRAT encompassed. It encouraged difficult conversations about fertility and friendship, revealing that fame doesn’t equate feelings getting spared or receiving grace. I have always felt that way because “home”, to me, has always been a patchwork. There’s the place you were born, the one you grew up in, the countries tied to your heritage, and now a campus far away from everything you ever knew. Each one of them feels like “home,” but then again none of them quite do. They overlap and argue with each other—they coexist like siblings fighting over the bigger room. Digital Resistance: How Young Palestinians Use Social Media to Preserve Memory In Palestine, memory has always been a form of resistance. Today, it lives not only in embroidery and heritage, but on digital screens across the world. Across Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinian towns inside Israel, a new generation is documenting life, loss, and love in "real- time" — transforming social media into a living archive of survival. “When They Tell You to Sing, You Just Sing.”: The Khmer Rouge’s Musical Manipulation of Cambodian Society “If you want to eliminate values from past societies, you have to eliminate the artists.”, reflects Prince Norodom Sirivudh of Cambodia, in the 2014 documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”, recounting the systematic erasure of music from Cambodian society under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Points sur l’Actualité du Moyen-Orient « Le Moyen-Orient. Moyen par rapport à quoi ? Orient de quoi ? Le nom de la région est fondé sur une vision eurocentrée du monde, et cette région a été façonnée par un regard européen ». Tels sont les premiers mots figurant dans le manifeste de la géostratégie publié par Tim Marshall, spécialiste britannique des relations internationales. Prisonnier de la géographie, comme le suggère le titre de son œuvre, le Moyen-Orient l’est aussi de ses frontières tracées au gré des intérêts européens, qui l’ont enfermé dans une spirale de haines et de tensions sans fin. The Pen, the Camera, and the Microphone: The Egyptian Kit of Soft Power Syria Today: Post-Assad Turmoil and Efforts to Rebuild Sciences Defense Syria’s road to recovery will likely be a tumultuous one—economic frailty, sectarian violence and external pressures weigh upon the government’s next steps. But for the first time in over a decade, the possibility of Syrian-led reconstruction can be seen as within reach. Is Romance Dead?: How Reality TV Shows Reflect Modern Dating How does watching strangers fall in love on national television reflect the most complicated parts of our emotional lives – dating? The transition from heartful romcoms to dating shows such as Love Island , Love is Blind or Too Hot to Handle perhaps indicate romance has died. Cocteau’s Azur: Exploring Queerness in Menton At first glance, Menton appears to be a quaint and peaceful town on the French Riviera—a place of leisure, history, and, of course, lemons. But is Menton truly as fruity as it seems? Singing through Grief – Collective Memory through Music Music has a strange sort of power; it can outlive the moments it was originally made for. You’ll Never Walk Alone has transcended Liverpool. Celtic fans sing it in Scotland, as well as Dortmund fans in Germany. It’s been sung in times of crisis—after terrorist attacks, during the pandemic and other acts of remembrance. But it will forever belong to Hillsborough first. It is sacred in the way a national anthem can become sacred, or a funeral hymn. You’ll Never Walk Alone began as a ballad of hope and then a cry for justice.

On a tranquil Mentonnais weekend, two weeks before the midterms rush, I boarded a train bound for Antibes. As I wandered through its cobbled streets, the Mediterranean shimmered next to me, breathing light into every corner of the city; a scene not so different from that of my hometown in Alexandria, Egypt. Apparently, this feeling of familiarity with this vast blue sea is nothing new—a feeling shared by many people no matter on which shore one is standing. < Back The Mediterranean Charm: Why Writers and Painters Keep Coming Back to This Sea Amena Elkayal November 13, 2025 On a tranquil Mentonnais weekend, two weeks before the midterms rush, I boarded a train bound for Antibes. As I wandered through its cobbled streets, the Mediterranean shimmered next to me, breathing light into every corner of the city; a scene not so different from that of my hometown in Alexandria, Egypt. Apparently, this feeling of familiarity with this vast blue sea is nothing new—a feeling shared by many people no matter on which shore one is standing . Back in Alexandria, when we used to drive along the Corniche, my father always spoke of how deeply he loved this sea, and I thought I already understood. But I only realized the depth of his feeling later, when I saw the words of Hugo, Fitzgerald, Matisse, Picasso and Monet scattered across Antibes' corners, showing the attachment they all had with the Mediterranean. Their words and brushstrokes still linger on the city’s walls, testament to an endless fascination of the Mediterranean and the solace it brings to their hearts and their arts. I found myself wondering: what is it about this exact sea; what is really that mesmerizing about this luminous expanse binding continents and cultures, continuously calling artists back? From Mahmoud Darwish, Albert Camus and Mahmoud Saïd to Monet and Picasso, the Mediterranean has been both a muse and a mirror, reflecting the spirit of those who gaze upon it. So let us drift along its shores to see why its beauty has never ceased to inspire. I’ll be biased and start with two of my personal favorite writers: Khalil Gibran and Mahmoud Darwish, two Levantines whose work was carried by the same Mediterranean wind. The Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran found a wellspring of poetic and spiritual inspiration in the Mediterranean landscape of his native Lebanon. Themes of sea and nature prevailed in the seemingly Mediterranean setting of “The Prophet,” his best known work. For Gibran, the sea was not just a body of water, but a restless companion, mirroring the human soul’s search for meaning. In his poem “ Revelation ” from (Prose Poems, 1934), he writes , “The sea never sleeps and the wakefulness of the sea brings comfort to a sleepless soul.” For Gibran, the sea became a sacred metaphor and an ever-living symbol through which he expressed humanity’s ceaseless yearning for spirituality, looking to a landscape that seems infinite. For Mahmoud Darwish, on the other hand, the water and the sea took on a more haunting symbolism. They were both a promise and a wound: a mirror of exile itself. To look at the sea was to remember a wounded present of migration, departure and displacement, but also to imagine a promised future: one of freedom and return. The strong link between the sea and exile was crystal clear in his poem “Without Exile, Who Am I?” What will we do … what will we do without exile, and a long night that stares at the water? Water binds me to your name ... The Mediterranean sea forms a central metaphor in Darwish’s poetry, symbolizing both exile and the aspirations for Palestine’s rebirth. In his eyes, the endlessly rolling waves mirror the uncertain lives of Palestinians displaced from their home, while the horizon reflects the trauma of those unable to envision a future. In his prose poems “Memory for Forgetfulness” (1986), written after the poet’s forced departure from Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982, Darwish describes the sea simultaneously as a space of annihilation and potential creation. He states : “The sea walks in the streets. The sea hangs from the windows and the branches of dried out trees. The sea descends from the sky and enters the room. Blue.. White.. Foam.. Waves. I do not love the sea.. I do not want the sea, because I do not see a shore, or a dove. I do not see anything in the sea except the sea. I do not see a shore. I do not see a dove.” As the Mediterranean floods the streets of Beirut, it represents not only the collapse of Arab unity and postcolonial dreams but also the primordial chaos from which new meaning can emerge. Between Algiers and metropolitan France, Albert Camus’s thought was molded by the Mediterranean world that defined his life. Born in colonial Algeria to French parents, he inhabited the uneasy space between colony and metropole. From this tension and in-betweenness he forged what he called the “Mediterranean spirit.” For Camus, this spirit was not about geography but about the harmony of living in rhythm with the world’s beauty and absurdity. The Mediterranean and its simplicity offered him a moral compass, a refuge and a rhythm, a place where time slows and life is measured not by productivity, but by presence. The sea and the sun are fundamental motifs in his literary works, like “The Stranger.” Camus’ “Mediterranean spirit" was a conscious cultural and political stance. In an article about this notion of a mediterranean spirit, the author states : … Camus overcame his strangerhood by calling the entire Mediterranean his home – not France, not Algeria. “I understand what it means to belong to a climate, rather than a country: a home shaped by the sun, the sea and the play of light. That home is also mine.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an outsider to the Mediterranean, but nonetheless found himself enchanted by it. In 1926, he and his wife Zelda settled in Antibes, renting what is now the Hôtel Belles Rives, where he began writing “Tender Is the Night.” In a 1926 letter to Hemingway, he wrote : “With our being back in a nice villa on my beloved Riviera… I’m happier than I’ve been for years. It’s one of those strange, precious and all too transitory moments when everything in one’s life seems to be going well.” That joy, fragile and fleeting, lives on in his fiction, where the Mediterranean became a stage for both beauty and tragedy. In “How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year”, published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1942, Fitzgerald states : “When your eyes first fall upon the Mediterranean you know at once why it was here that man first stood erect and stretched out his arms toward the sun. It is a blue sea; or rather it is too blue for that hackneyed phrase which has described every muddy pool from pole to pole. It is the fairy blue of Maxfield Parrish’s pictures, blue like blue books, blue oil, blue eyes, and in the shadow of the mountains a green belt of land runs along the coast for a hundred miles and makes a playground for the world.” From the page to the canvas, the Mediterranean also inspired painters. If Fitzgerald came to the Mediterranean seeking joy, Pablo Picasso’s art was shaped by it. Born on the Spanish coast, Picasso spent decades in the South of France, drawn to the Côte d’Azur’s light and familiarity. He often drew on his Mediterranean surroundings for inspiration, and once commented : "It’s strange; in Paris I never drew fauns, centaurs or mythological heroes. They always seem to live in these parts." In Antibes, Picasso painted “La Joie de Vivre” (1946) – a vibrant hymn to life, dance and the sea’s timeless energy. His Mediterranean was exotic and playful, filled with ancient echoes of Greek and Roman myths. It wasn’t just a landscape to him; it was a civilisation painted in color. His vision transformed the Mediterranean from a mere geography into an enduring symbol of artistic renewal. Artist Henri Matisse has also always been tremendously inspired by the Mediterranean. In 1917, Henri Matisse arrived in Nice and immediately fell under the spell of the Mediterranean light, which was brighter, softer and more consoling than Paris’s grey. This light revived his artistic spirit, giving his canvases new warmth and radiance. “When I realized that every morning I would see this light again, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was,” he confessed. The Mediterranean light reinvigorated his artistic style with his bold use of colors and sculptural lines. He didn’t just seek to paint the Mediterranean as it appeared, but as it felt: a place both lived and dreamed. His vivid palette captured the region’s warmth, sunlight and sensuous vitality— the rhythm of daily life by the sea. Yet through his simplified forms and unreal, luminous colors, Matisse transformed that lived reality into a dreamlike vision of harmony and timeless beauty. This fascination is evident in many of his works, such as “The Open Window” and “ Intérieur à la boîte à violon. ” Matisse’s fascination with the Mediterranean Sea endured throughout his life. From his first stay in Corsica in 1898 to his long, luminous years in Nice between 1917 and 1954, as well as his journeys across Algeria, Spain, Italy and Morocco. Matisse, in a conversation with Pierre Courthion, once said : “ I’m a northerner… so it’s the Mediterranean that made the biggest impression on me.” For Matisse, the Mediterranean was more than a landscape: it was a revelation. Its radiant light and rich artistic traditions shaped his visual language, linking him deeply to the ancient cultures of the Near East. Through this connection, he explored not mere representation but his own perception of place — a sea both real and imagined, lived and dreamed. As the poet Paul Valéry once described , the Mediterranean is a “machine for making civilization.” For Matisse, it was precisely that: an endless muse—a source of color, beauty and renewal. There was also Claude Monet, who came to the Riviera unsure whether he could ever paint it. In letters to his beloved Alice Hoschedé, he confessed both awe and doubt on whether he could really capture its exotic essence: Between 1884 and 1888, Monet painted the coasts of Bordighera and Antibes, producing dozens of works that shimmered with new colors and light. The fort, sea, mountains and rocks of Antibes inspired Claude Monet. In 1888, he came to the Riviera from Paris and, although he only stayed four months, completed 39 paintings. Each of Monet's three long stays in the Mediterranean were an opportunity for him to radically transform his work. Each wave, each reflection was a proof that even for an artist of his stature, the Mediterranean could still teach wonder. On the southern shore, in Alexandria, Egypt, Mahmoud Saïd, the pioneering Egyptian modernist, found great artistic inspiration in Alexandria, with its beautiful Mediterranean shore and people. His paintings, from “Le Port d’Alexandrie” (1919) to “Les Falaises à Marsa Matrouh” (1948), captured the Mediterranean’s unique light and the quiet lives of its people. Through Saïd’s eyes, the sea became Egyptian, familiar and deeply human—portrayed with the same artistic mastery as in the works of Matisse or Monet, only from the other shore. His work also extended to portraying the Mediterranean in other countries like Crete Island and Lebanon, showing his interest in the sea as a cultural and artistic continuum rather than a national boundary. As the train carried me back to Menton that evening, the sun dipped low over the horizon, ornamenting the sea with light. I thought of all the writers and painters whose wisdom I experienced wandering around Antibes, the exiles and dreamers who had stood before this same sea, searching for meaning, beauty or simply a sense of belonging. Big words scattered around the city but not at all far or unfamiliar from what my dad, me or even Mahmoud Said experienced in Alexandria. Perhaps that is the secret of the Mediterranean charm: it does not belong to anyone, yet it makes everyone who looks at it feel at home. Its rhythm speaks a universal language, one of lightful souls loving to live, one of longing and one of shared experiences. The Mediterranean, after all, is not just a sea. It is a mirror of civilization, of exile and of the human spirit, one I will always carry whether in Alexandria or Menton. Photo Source: Author's Own