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Middle Eastern Studies
Middle Eastern Studies March 25, 2023

The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub

Or, How the Bethlehemites Discovered Amerka

Jacob Norris

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
This is the fantastical, yet real, story of the merchants of Bethlehem, the young men who traveled to every corner of the globe in the nineteenth century. These men set …

Middle Eastern Studies

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Interviews with scholars of the Middle East about their new books.

Gender Studies March 17, 2023

Between Banat

Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives

Mejdulene Bernard Shomali

Hosted by Fulya Pinar
In Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke UP, 2023), Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and non-normative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and …
Islamic Studies March 17, 2023

In the Shade of the Sunna

Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East

Aaron Rock-Singer

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
Who are the Salafis, and what are the roots of Salafism? What does it even mean to be Salafi? Why is Salafism concerned with ethics of visibility and bodily regulation …
Middle Eastern Studies March 15, 2023

Teachers as State-Builders

Education and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Hilary Falb Kalisman

Hosted by Reuben Silverman
Today, it is hard to imagine a time and place when public school teachers were considered among the elite strata of society. But in the lands controlled by the Ottomans …
Literature March 14, 2023

You Must Believe in Spring

Mohamed Tonsy

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
You Must Believe in Spring (Hajar Press, 2022) is Mohamed Tonsy's "speculative fiction." It is about the future of Egypt when people's memory of the recent revolution is beginning to fade away …
French Studies March 14, 2023

Sacred Rivals

Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France and Algeria

Joseph W. Peterson

Hosted by Sarah Miles
Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries …
Architecture March 8, 2023

Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran

A Vital Past

Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran (Manchester UP, 2020) analyses the use of the past and the production of heritage through architectural design in the …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones March 7, 2023

The Silk Road

Connecting Histories and Futures

Tim Winter

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
The term "Silk Road" evokes images of trade and exotic luxurious goods and Orientalist images. Today, however, it also is associated with the projection of Chinese power abroad. And as that …
Middle Eastern Studies March 5, 2023

A History of Herat

From Chingiz Khan to Tamerlane

Shivan Mahendrarajah

Hosted by Reuben Silverman
Shivan Mahendrarajah's A History of Herat: From Chingiz Khan to Tamerlane (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) follows the history of the city, from its desolation under Chingiz Khan in 1222, to its capitulation …
Environmental Studies March 5, 2023

Flooded Pasts

UNESCO, Nubia, and the Recolonization of Archaeology

William Carruthers

Hosted by Mohamed Gamal-Eldin
Flooded Pasts: UNESCO, Nubia, and the Recolonization of Archaeology (Cornell UP, 2022) examines a world famous yet critically underexamined event—UNESCO's International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia (1960–80)—to show …
Islamic Studies March 3, 2023

Unknowing and the Everyday

Sufism and Knowledge in Iran

Seema Golestaneh

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and …
Diplomatic History February 28, 2023

Confronting Saddam Hussein

George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq

Melvyn P. Leffler

Hosted by Grant Golub
America's decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 is arguably the most important foreign policy choice of the entire post-Cold War era. Nearly two decades after the event …
Political Science February 27, 2023

Beyond Piety and Politics

Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences in the Middle East and North Africa

Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich, and Ammar Shamaileh

Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty
How do ordinary men and women in Muslim-majority societies create religion-informed views of political topics such as democracy and economics? Beyond Piety and Politics: Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences …
Ancient History February 25, 2023

Weavers, Scribes, and Kings

A New History of the Ancient Near East

Amanda Podany

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East (Oxford University Press, 2022), a sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Dr. Amanda Podany takes readers …
Jewish Studies February 24, 2023

Tevye's Ottoman Daughter

Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews at the End of Empire

Sarah M. Zaides

Hosted by Makena Mezistrano
In existing scholarship on Jewish subjects of the Russian Empire, there were three typical fates available to Russia's Jews on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution: they could remain in the …
Almost Good Catholics February 23, 2023

Digging for Answers

The Archaeology of Jerusalem and the Politics of Archaeology

Katharina Galor

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Katharina Galor, an archaeology professor at the at the Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University who has done a lot of excavation in Israel, is the author of The …
Middle Eastern Studies February 21, 2023

Palestine 1936

The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

Oren Kessler

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
In spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist …
Jewish Studies February 19, 2023

The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel

Exodus

David Arnovitz

Hosted by Matthew Miller
The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel: Exodus (Koren, 2020) offers an innovative and refreshing approach to the Hebrew Bible. By fusing extraordinary findings by modern scholars on the ancient …
Asian Review of Books February 16, 2023

Jerusalem Falls

Seven Centuries of War and Peace

John D. Hosler

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
When 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 …
Jewish Studies February 14, 2023

Karaism

An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism

Daniel Lasker

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Karaite 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 …