New Books in Middle Eastern Studies
1,060 episodes - English - Latest episode: 26 days ago - ★★★★ - 28 ratingsInterviews with Scholars of the Middle East about their New Books
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Episodes
John D. Hosler, "Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace" (Yale UP, 2022)
February 16, 2023 09:00 - 48 minutesWhen the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate entered Jerusalem in 638, the city was quite different from what it is today–one of the most important cities for three religions. As John Hosler writes in his latest book, Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace (Yale University Press, 2022): “Three things may seem nearly inconceivable to modern readers: that the Temple Mount, a place of such incredible significance and symbolism, once served as Jerusalem’s garbage dump; that it once went w...
Daniel Lasker, "Karaism: An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism" (Littman Library, 2022)
February 14, 2023 09:00 - 58 minutesKaraite Judaism emerged in the ninth century in the Islamic Middle East as an alternative to the rabbinic Judaism of the Jewish majority. Karaites reject the underlying assumption of rabbinic Judaism, namely, that Jewish practice is to be based on two divinely revealed Torahs, a written one, embodied in the Five Books of Moses, and an oral one, eventually written down in rabbinic literature. In Karaism: An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism (Littman Library of Jewish Civ...
Jessica Barnes, "Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt" (Duke UP, 2022)
February 10, 2023 09:00 - 25 minutesEgyptians often say that bread is life; most eat this staple multiple times a day, many relying on the cheap bread subsidized by the government. In Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt (Duke UP, 2022), Jessica Barnes explores the process of sourcing domestic and foreign wheat for the production of bread and its consumption across urban and rural settings. She traces the anxiety that pervades Egyptian society surrounding the possibility that the nation could run out of wheat or that peopl...
Gabriel Glickman, "US-Egypt Diplomacy Under Johnson: Nasser, Komer, and the Limits of Personal Diplomacy" (Bloombury, 2021)
February 05, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourWhat happens to policies when a president dies in office? Do they get replaced by the new president, or do advisers carry on with the status quo? In November 1963, these were important questions for a Kennedy-turned-Johnson administration. Among these officials was a driven National Security Council staffer named Robert Komer, who had made it his personal mission to have the United States form better relations with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser after diplomatic relations were nearly severed duri...
Gyan Prakash and Jeremy Adelman, "Inventing the Third World: In Search of Freedom for the Postwar Global South" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
February 05, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourWhat is the Third World? The term has essentially been scrubbed from our collective consciousness. What once used to be something concrete seems to have vanished into thin air. Today, the Third World seems to be “a closed chapter in world history.” But my guests today are determined that it not remain so. In their new edited volume, Inventing the Third World: In Search of Freedom for the Postwar Global South, historians Gyan Prakash, Jeremy Adelman, and their collaborators argue that the mult...
Spencer D. Segalla, "Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
February 04, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourSpencer Segalla’s Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 (U Nebraska Press, 2021) explores natural and anthropogenic disasters during the years of decolonization and Cold War. Four disasters make up the core of the book: the 1954 earthquake in Algeria’s Chélif Valley, just weeks before the onset of the Algerian Revolution; a mass poisoning in Morocco in 1959 caused by toxic substances from an American military base...
M. M. Silver, "The History of Galilee, 1538-1949" (Lexington Books, 2022)
February 04, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourThis study of Galilee in modern times reaches back to the region's Biblical roots and points to future challenges in the Arab-Jewish conflict, Israel's development, and inter-faith relations. M. M. Silver's The History of Galilee, 1538-1949 ( Lexington Books, 2022) covers an array of subjects, including Kabbalah, the rise of Palestinian nationalism, modern Christian approaches to Galilee's past and present, Zionist pioneering, the roots of the Arab-Jewish dispute, and the conflict's eruption ...
Yonatan Adler, "The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal" (Yale UP, 2022)
February 01, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourThroughout much of history, the Jewish way of life has been characterized by strict adherence to the practices and prohibitions legislated by the Torah: dietary laws, ritual purity, circumcision, Sabbath regulations, holidays, and more. But precisely when did this unique way of life first emerge, and why specifically at that time? In The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal (Yale UP, 2022), Yonatan Adler methodically engages ancient texts and archaeological discoveries...
Meir M. Bar-Asher, "Jews and the Qur'an" (Princeton UP, 2022)
February 01, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourIn this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia. He traces the Qur'anic origins of the protection of Jews and other minorities living under the rule of Islam, and shows how attitudes toward Jews in Shi'i Islam are substantially different from those in Sunni Is...
Discordia Revisited: The Concordia Netanyahu Riot of 2002
February 01, 2023 09:00 - 1 hour20 years ago at Concordia University in Montreal pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with police over whether Benjamin Netanyahu should be allowed to speak on campus. Windows were smashed, arrests were made, the talk was cancelled. The fallout from that day defined how the school year proceeded, with heated council debates, media stunts, lawsuits, explosions, and a contentious student election. This was captured in the film Discordia (2004), and while the fight had no influence over the confli...
Greg Brew, "Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
January 31, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourFrom the 1940s to 1960s, Iran developed into the world's first “petro-state,” where oil represented the bulk of state revenue and supported an industrializing economy, expanding middle class, and powerful administrative and military apparatus. In Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War (Cambridge UP, 2022), Gregory Brew outlines how the Pahlavi petro-state emerged from a confluence of forces – some global, some local. He shows how the shah's particular form of oil-...
The Mesopotamian Connection: Comparing the Bible to Other Literature of the Ancient Near East
January 30, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourProfessor Cathleen Chopra-McGowan examines some the incongruities of our Bible in the context of the Ancient Near East, showing how the stories and traditions of Israel resembled and borrowed from those of Babylon and Assyria. She compares the Genesis narrative to two others, the epics of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis, especially discussing the universal flood narrative and rationale for sacrifice to show the evolution of our ancestors’ religious practice and thinking about God. Professor Chopra-M...
George Anton Kiraz, "Water the Willow Tree: Memoirs of a Bethlehem Boyhood" (Gorgias Press, 2022)
January 29, 2023 09:00 - 57 minutesIn Water the Willow Tree: Memoirs of a Bethlehem Boyhood (Gorgias Press, 2022), George A. Kiraz tells the story of a young Palestinian boy growing up in Bethlehem, fascinated with understanding his Syriac roots even as he drew steadily nearer to the day when he would inevitably be transplanted to the United States. George first traces his ancestors’ migration from Upper Mesopotamia—present-day Turkey—to Palestine in the aftermath of the horrific Sayfo genocide of 1915 (known more popularly as...
Mitri Raheb, "The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire" (Baylor UP, 2021)
January 29, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutesPersecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often portrayed as a homogeneous, helpless group ever at the mercy of their Muslim enemies, a situation that only Western powers can remedy. The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire (Baylor UP, 2021) revisits this narrat...
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, "Beautiful, Gruesome, and True: Artists at Work in the Face of War" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022)
January 29, 2023 00:00 - 1 hourArt has a long history of engaging with conflict and violence. From the antiquities, through Goya, to Guernica, our museums are filled with depictions of battles, pogroms, uprisings, and their suppression. Not all of these stories are told from the perspective of the victors. Many contemporary creatives have continued this tradition. While the position of the official war artist seems to have gone out of fashion, conflict hasn’t. Artists are compelled to document the violence and conflict tha...
David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, "The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951-1954" (UNC Press, 2023)
January 28, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourBeginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953, the Iranian oil crisis was a crucial turning point in the global Cold War. The nationalization challenged Great Britain's preeminence in the Middle East and threatened Western oil concessions everywhere. Fearing the loss of Iran and possibly the entire Middle East and its oil to communist control, the United Stat...
Kobi Peled, "Words Like Daggers: The Political Poetry of the Negev Bedouin" (Brill, 2022)
January 27, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourFor generations, the composition and recitation of poetry has been a key mode of expression among Bedouin populations in the Middle East, reflecting social norms, religious practices, relationships with the natural environment, and tribal histories and politics. In Words Like Daggers: The Political Poetry of the Negev Bedouin (Brill, 2022), Kobi Peled, Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, analyzes a corpus of poetry collected among the Bedouin of the Negev Desert over the past 100...
Mostafa Minawi, "Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire" (Stanford UP, 2022)
January 23, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourMostafa Minawi's Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire (Stanford University Press, 2022) offers an intimate history of empire, following the rise and fall of a generation of Arab-Ottoman imperialists living in Istanbul. Minawi shows how these men and women negotiated their loyalties and guarded their privileges through a microhistorical study of the changing social, political, and cultural currents between 1878 and the First World War. He narrates lives lived in the...
Contextualizing the Iranian Protests: The Role of Women in Leading the Change
January 23, 2023 09:00 - 47 minutesWestern sanctions have slowed Iran's economy, causing protests against the absence of freedom and opportunities -- teachers their lack of pay; farmers their lack of water; retirees their fear of economic insecurity. But at the heart of this powerful new movement has been Iran's women, whose frustration with Iran’s misogynist theocracy had been mounting for four decades. This week on International Horizons, RBI Research Associate Ellen Chesler is joined by Mahnaz Afkhami, former Minister of Wo...
Youshaa Patel, "The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line Between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present" (Yale UP, 2023)
January 20, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourAccording to a famous prophetic report, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them.” What does “imitation” here mean? Rather, what does this statement really mean at all, and how have Muslims historically understood it? How did this simple report become a doctrine in the Islamic tradition? What does this hadith mean for Muslims today, in an increasingly interreligious atmosphere and especially for those living in the West or in other non-Muslim-majority contexts? Finally, why do humans in...
Dalal Abo El Seoud, "Fish, Milk, Tamarind: A Book of Egyptian Arabic Food Expressions" (American U in Cairo Press, 2022)
January 18, 2023 09:00 - 31 minutesIn Fish, Milk, Tamarind: A Book of Egyptian Arabic Food Expressions (American University in Cairo Press, 2022), Dalal Abo El Seoud presents 100 commonly used Egyptian food expressions. Can you guess what Egyptians mean when they say that something is "a peeled banana" or that someone is "sleeping in honey" or has "turned the sea to tahini"? You may find the answers quite unexpected when you open the pages of this delightful giftbook featuring some one hundred popular food-inflected phrases an...
Marlene Schäfers, "Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
January 16, 2023 09:00 - 39 minutes“Raise your voice!” and “Speak up!” are familiar refrains that assume, all too easily, that gaining voice will lead to empowerment, healing, and inclusion for marginalized subjects. Marlene Schäfers’s Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey (U Chicago Press, 2022) reveals where such assumptions fall short, demonstrating that “raising one’s voice” is no straightforward path to emancipation but fraught with anxieties, dilemmas, and contradictions...
Elia Meghnagi, "Escape from Benghazi: Diary of an Imposter" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2022)
January 15, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourElia Meghnagi last saw his childhood home in Benghazi when he was only seventeen. A member of the endangered and fast-shrinking millennia-old Jewish community of Libya, in 1958 Elia was forced to flee, finding refuge in Cambridge as a foreign student. Elia built a new life for himself in England, finding friends, community, love, and a career in telecomms engineering that would take him across the globe until he swapped his high-flying career for one, no less challenging, in the kosher food b...
Aaron Berman, "America's Arab Nationalists: From the Ottoman Revolution to the Rise of Hitler" (Routledge, 2022)
January 13, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourAaron Berman's book America's Arab Nationalists: From the Ottoman Revolution to the Rise of Hitler (Routledge, 2022) focuses in on the relationship between Arab nationalists and Americans in the struggle for independence in an era when idealistic Americans could see the Arab nationalist struggle as an expression of their own values. In the first three decades of the twentieth century (from the 1908 Ottoman revolution to the rise of Hitler), important and influential Americans, including membe...
Wout J. van Bekkum, "The Religious Poetry of El'azar Ben Ya'aqov Ha-Bavli (Baghdad, 13th C.)" (Brill, 2022)
January 12, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourWout J. van Bekkum's The Religious Poetry of El'azar Ben Ya'aqov Ha-Bavli (Baghdad, 13th C.) (Brill, 2022) is a comprehensive edition of Hebrew hymns composed by Eleazar the Babylonian, a prolific composer and scholar who lived in 13th-century Baghdad. His poetic language and style show much affinity with contemporary Sufism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-st...
Roma in the Medieval Islamic World
January 08, 2023 09:00 - 46 minutesMedieval Arabic sources are full of references to the Banu Sasan (Sons of Sasan) and the Ghuraba' (Strangers), an enigmatic but captivating group who begged, told fortunes, trained animals, and practiced medicine throughout the Islamic world from the mid-7th century onwards. These groups constitute peoples who would later come to be known as the Roma. Although they both produced their own texts and were written about by outsiders, relatively little scholarship has been conducted into the Roma...
Bordering the Bedouin
January 07, 2023 21:00 - 1 hourContemporary issues like the refugee crisis, climate refugees, and global restrictions on movement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have brought into stark relief the extent to which our movements, lives, and worldviews are governed by national borders and boundary-making. But these borders and their associated militarization and security infrastructures are a recent phenomenon, the legacy of 20th-century wars and colonialism. Modern borders are also often the result of complex, disputed negot...
Peter Hudis, "Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades" (Pluto Press, 2015)
January 07, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourFrantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary whose works, including Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth are hugely influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and post-Marxism. His legacy remains with us today, having inspired movements in Palestine, Sri Lanka, the US and South Africa. Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades (Pluto Press, 2015) is a critical biography of his extraordinary life. ...
Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Mediterranean
January 06, 2023 09:00 - 55 minutesFor most of human history, the Mediterranean was home to a significant number of pastoralists, who herded livestock along seasonal migratory routes. Today, traces of this pastoralist presence have all but disappeared. Dr. Andrea Duffy's book Nomad's Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the 19th-Century Mediterranean World (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) seeks to answer the question - what caused the decline and retreat of Mediterranean pastoralism? Dr. Duffy explores the ...
The Bedouin and the Formation of Iraq's National Borders
January 05, 2023 09:00 - 58 minutesThe British occupation of Iraq after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to the creation of Iraq's national boundaries, a process with profound and long-lasting implications for the inhabitants of Iraq's border regions. In his dissertation, "The Origins and Development of Iraq's National Boundaries, 1918-1932: Policing and Political Geography in the Iraq-Nejd and Iraq-Syria Borderlands" (University of Chicago, 2018), Dr. Carl Shook examined how Iraq's modern national borders were formed in...
The Future of Iranian Resistance: A Discussion with Azadeh Moaveni
January 04, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutesHow strong is the Iranian resistance? And which parts of society does that resistance come from? Are there any parallels with resistance that brought down the Shah of Iran in 1979? Iran watcher NYU academic and journalist Azadeh Moaveni discusses Iranian society with Owen Bennett-Jones. Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently ...
Rock Art in the Nomadic Landscape of the Black Desert
January 04, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutesThe "Black Desert" in the northern Arabian Peninsula is home to thousands of pieces of rock art - both written inscriptions and figural images - left there by the region's nomadic inhabitants during the Hellenistic and Roman periods ca. 2,000 years ago. Dr. Nathalie Brusgaard received her PhD (Leiden University, 2019) for her research into this rock art, exploring their content and themes and what they can tell us about the cultures, lifestyles, and subsistence methods of the Black Desert's n...
The 'Queens of the Arabs' during the Neo-Assyrian Period
January 03, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourEight women appear in Neo-Assyrian sources from the 7th and 8th centuries BCE with the ambiguous but intriguing title 'queen of the Arabs.' Despite providing a rare glimpse of power wielded by women in this period, these rulers remain under-studied and often misunderstood in Assyriology. Aiming to correct these misconceptions, 'the queens of the Arabs' formed the basis of Dr. Ellie Bennett's doctoral dissertation (University of Helsinki, 2021). In this episode Dr. Bennett joins me to talk abo...
Iraqi Bedouin and Intangible Cultural Heritage
January 02, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutesA conversation with Dr. Salah Hatem and Dr. Jaafar Jotheri, professors of archaeology at al-Qadisiyah University, about their research project documenting the intangible cultural heritage of the Bedouin in southern Iraq. This episode covers topics ranging from the lifestyle of the Iraqi Bedouin to their indigenous knowledge (how to find water in the desert; plants that can be used as medicine) to how cultural heritage can be a tool for social change. Their research project is funded by the ...
Nomads in the Bible
December 31, 2022 09:00 - 29 minutesWhat does the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible have to say about nomads and nomadism in the ancient Near East? This episode explores nomadism in the Judaic religious tradition through the eyes of the authors of the Old Testament. Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
Samsi, Queen of the Arabs
December 30, 2022 09:00 - 27 minutesA bonus episode in honor of Womens History Month! Learn all about Samsi, one of the queens of the ancient Arabs, and what her story can tell us about gender and the status of women among nomadic peoples and empires in the ancient Near East. Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. Wretched Destroyer by Kevin MacLeod. License. Crusade Heavy Industry by Kevin MacLeod. License. All other sounds courtesy of the BBC Sound Effects Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. ...
The Ancient Arabs
December 29, 2022 09:00 - 23 minutesThis episode discusses the nomadic Arab tribes between about 850 and 450 BCE. What do we know about their lifestyles, cultures, and relationships with the empires around them? Music in this episode: Desert City by Kevin MacLeod. License. All other sounds courtesy of the BBC Sound Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
Eren Duzgun, "Capitalism, Jacobinism and International Relations: Revisiting Turkish Modernity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
December 28, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourWestern interpretations of the Ottoman age of reform and the Turkish Republic often evaluate these histories against an idealized, essentialized narrative of the European history, in which a triumphant bourgeois class instigated transitions to political liberalism and capitalism. Consequently, their explanations of persistent authoritarian tendencies and statist economic development policies focus on what features of European modernity are missing or insufficiently present in Turkey. In Capi...
Ron Kronish, "Profiles in Peace: Voices of Peacebuilders in the Midst of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (2022)
December 27, 2022 09:00 - 46 minutesRabbi Ron Kronish spent thirty years directing the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), an interfaith organization devoted to promoting dialogue in Israel. Utilizing the tools of interfaith dialogue, the ICCI became a “council of organizations…as a tool in peacebuilding throughout the 1990’s, until 2015.” (From the introduction.) In Profiles in Peace: Voices of Peacebuilders in the Midst of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2022), Kronish interviews six diverse individuals wh...
Ruth Tsoffar, "Life in Citations: Biblical Narratives and Contemporary Hebrew Culture" (Routledge, 2019)
December 25, 2022 05:00 - 1 hourIn her latest book, Life in Citiations: Biblical Narratives and Contemporary Hebrew Culture (Routledge, 2019), Ruth Tsoffar studies several key biblical narratives that figure prominently in Israeli culture. Life in Citations provides a close reading of these narratives, along with works by contemporary Hebrew Israeli artists that respond to them. Together they read as a modern commentary on life with text, or even life under the rule of its verses, to answer questions like: How can we explai...
Pamela Karimi, "Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice" (Stanford UP, 2022)
December 22, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourAlternative Iran offers a unique contribution to the field of contemporary art, investigating how Iranian artists engage with space and site amid the pressures of the art market and the state's regulatory regimes. Since the 1980s, political, economic, and intellectual forces have driven Iran's creative class toward increasingly original forms of artmaking not meant for official venues. Instead, these art forms appear in private homes with "trusted" audiences, derelict buildings, leftover urba...
Andreas Guidi, "Generations of Empire: Youth from Ottoman to Italian Rule in the Mediterranean" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
December 22, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourIn 1912, Italy occupied Rhodes, an Ottoman town inhabited by Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. Rhodes became a territory of Italy's empire in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne, only one year after Mussolini seized power in Rome. The Ottoman demise corresponded to the expansion of fascist imperialism in the Mediterranean. Both the Ottoman Young Turks and Italian colonial governors invoked the role of a "new generation" of youth in imperial rule. Generations of Empire: Youth fro...
Geoff Harkness, "Changing Qatar: Culture, Citizenship, and Rapid Modernization" (NYU Press, 2020)
December 21, 2022 09:00 - 41 minutesQatar, an ambitious country in the Arabian Gulf, grabbed headlines as the first Middle Eastern nation selected to host the FIFA World Cup. As the wealthiest country in the world—and one of the fastest-growing - it is known for its capital, Doha, which boasts a striking, futuristic skyline. In Changing Qatar: Culture, Citizenship, and Rapid Modernization (NYU Press, 2022), Geoff Harkness takes us beyond the headlines, providing a fresh perspective on modern-day life in the increasingly visible...
Muhammet Koçak, "Turkey-Russia Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Cooperation and Competition Amid Systemic Turbulence" (Lexington, 2022)
December 19, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourTurkey and Russia are two of the most significant powerhouses in Eurasia. The foreign policies of two countries directly impact the regional dynamics in Black Sea, Central Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkan regions. The changes in the bilateral relations between the two countries go well beyond the Black Sea region. In the past, the Russian Empire played a significant role in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey took part in containing the USSR during the Cold War by ...
Munira Khayyat, "A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon" (U California Press, 2022)
December 18, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourWhat worlds take root in war? In A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon (U California Press, 2022), anthropologist Munira Khayyat describes life along the southern border of Lebanon, where resistant ecologies thrive amid a terrain of perennial war. A Landscape of War takes us to frontline villages where armed invasions, indiscriminate bombings, and scattered land mines have become the environment where everyday life is waged. This book dwells with multispeci...
Amal Sachedina, "Cultivating the Past, Living the Modern: The Politics of Time in the Sultanate of Oman" (Cornell UP, 2021)
December 17, 2022 09:00 - 55 minutesCultivating the Past, Living the Modern: The Politics of Time in the Sultanate of Oman (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how and why heritage has emerged as a prevalent force in building the modern nation state of Oman. Amal Sachedina analyses the relations with the past that undergird the shift in Oman from an Ibadi shari'a Imamate (1913–1958) to a modern nation state from 1970 onwards. Since its inception as a nation state, material forms in the Sultanate of Oman—such as old mosques and shari'a m...
Jamil Jan Kochai, "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories" (Viking, 2022)
December 08, 2022 09:00 - 32 minutesThe first story in Jamil Jan Kochai’s newest collection has an interesting title and premise. “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” leads The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories (Viking: 2022). But what starts as a story of a young Afghan-American man buying the latest installment of the stealth video game becomes an exploration of Afghanistan, how its borne the brunt of generations of imperial and geopolitical conflict–and how that history is etched on its people. Jamil’s book...
Frederic C. Hof, "Reaching for the Heights: The Inside Story of a Secret Attempt to Reach a Syrian-Israeli Peace" (USIP, 2022)
December 08, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourReaching for the Heights: The Inside Story of a Secret Attempt to Reach a Syrian-Israeli Peace (USIP, 2022) is an insider’s account of secret negotiations to broker a Syria-Israel peace deal―negotiations that came tantalizingly close to success. Ambassador Frederic Hof, who spearheaded the US-mediated discussions in 2009-11, takes readers behind the scenes in Washington, Damascus, and Jerusalem, where President Assad and Prime Minister Netanyahu inched toward a deal to return Israeli-occupied...
Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, "Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950" (Stanford UP, 2022)
December 06, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourAomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein's book Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (Stanford UP, 2022), the first-ever collection of primary documents on North African history and the Holocaust, gives voice to the diversity of those involved--Muslims, Christians, and Jews; women, men, and children; black, brown, and white; the unknown and the notable; locals, refugees, the displaced, and the interned; soldiers, officers, bureaucrats, volunteer fighters, and the forcibly recruit...
On "1001 Nights"
December 06, 2022 09:00 - 30 minutesHumans love stories. And no collection of stories is more beloved worldwide than the Middle Eastern folk tales known as One Thousand and One Nights. The original collection only contained about 40 stories. It was compiled into a manuscript sometime between the 8th century and the 14th century during the Islamic Golden Age. The stories were made popular in the West by the French translator Antoine Galland who got a hold of this original manuscript in the 1690s. Galland began translating and pu...