New Books Network
Middle Eastern Studies
Kurdish Studies May 7, 2021

Insurgent Women

Female Combatants in Civil Wars

Jessica Trisko Darden, Alexis Henshaw, and Ora Szekely

Hosted by Dilan Okcuoglu
Today I talked to Ora Szekely about Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown UP, 2019), which she co-edited with Jessica Trisko Darden and Alexis Henshaw. Why do women go to war in …

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Middle Eastern Studies May 7, 2021

Turkey, Egypt, and Syria

A Travelogue

Shibli Numani

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue (Syracuse UP, 2019) vividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli Nu'mani (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in …
Middle Eastern Studies May 7, 2021

Between Muslims

Religious Difference in Iraqi Kurdistan

J. Andrew Bush

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Between Muslims Religious Difference in Iraqi Kurdistan (Stanford UP, 2020) by J. Andrew Bush asks what it means to be Muslim, yet not pious, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though Islam is …
Islamic Studies May 7, 2021

Words of Experience

Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Brannon M. Wheeler

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
For more than three decades now, Carl Ernst, through his scholarship and his public engagement on the study of Islam and Muslim societies, has modeled the finest form of intellectual …
Middle Eastern Studies May 5, 2021

Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life

The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World

Jörg Matthias Determann

Hosted by Asad Dandia
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the …
Mobilities and Methods May 3, 2021

Queer in Translation

Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam

Evren Savci

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
In Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam (Duke UP, 2021), Evren Savcı analyzes the travel and translation of Western LGBT political terminology to Turkey in order to illuminate …
Islamic Studies April 30, 2021

Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought

Massignon, Corbin, Jambet

Ziad Elmarsafy

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In his new book Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought: Massignon, Corbin, Jambet (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021) Ziad Elmarsafy maps the intellectual and personal genealogies of three French specialists of …
Science, Technology, and Society April 29, 2021

Genetic Crossroads

The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity

Elise K. Burton

Hosted by Laura Stark
Elise K. Burton’s important book, Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity (Stanford University Press, 2021), documents how race and nation became fused in concept and …
History April 27, 2021

Strangling the Axis

The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War

Richard Hammond

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
In his new book, Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2020) , Dr. Richard Hammond, Lecturer in War Studies …
Middle Eastern Studies April 21, 2021

When We Were Arabs

A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History

Massoud Hayoun

Hosted by Nadirah Mansour
When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History (New Press, 2019) is part-memoir, part-history of Jewish Arabs. We follow Massoud Hayoun as he documents his family’s history, their place …
Islamic Studies April 9, 2021

Transformations of Tradition

Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity

Junaid Quadri

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In his much anticipated and equally brilliant book Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity (Oxford UP, 2021), Junaid Quadri explores the productive tensions, fissures, and creative interpretive projects …
History April 7, 2021

Embodying Geopolitics

Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon

Nicola Pratt

Hosted by Jennifer Davis Cline
Dina Hassan (Lecturer, Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, University of Oklahoma, USA) speaks with Nicola Pratt (Associate Professor, International Politics of the Middle East, University of Warwick, UK) about Pratt’s …
Middle Eastern Studies April 7, 2021

Stories My Father Told Me

Memories of a Childhood in Syria and Lebanon

Helen Zughaib and Elia Zughaib

Hosted by Valerie Saint-Rossy
Family stories are the texture of the human fabric. From every land, from every time, they bring the past to life for young ears. In the beginning of the twentieth …
Islamic Studies April 2, 2021

Ambient Sufism

Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form

Richard C. Jankowsky

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form (University of Chicago Press, 2021) by Richard C. Jankowsky (an Associate Professor of music at Tufts University) is a …
Indian Ocean World April 2, 2021

Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds

Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng'weno, and Neelima Jeychandran

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds (Routledge, 2020), coedited by Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng'weno, and Neelima Jeychandran, breaks new ground by bringing together multidisciplinary approaches to examine contemporary Indian Ocean worlds. It …
Military History March 31, 2021

War of Shadows

Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East

Gershom Gorenberg

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led …
Middle Eastern Studies March 30, 2021

The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia

Sufism, Politics and Community

Ayfer Karakaya-Stump

Hosted by Deren Ertas
In today's program, Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, Associate Professor of History at the College of William and Mary, discusses her recently-published monograph, The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics, and Community (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).  …
History March 26, 2021

Visions of Deliverance

Moriscos and the Politics of Prophecy in the Early Modern Mediterranean

Mayte Green-Mercado

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we hear from Mayte Green-Mercado, Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey to talk about Visions of Deliverance: Moriscos and the Politics of Prophecy in …
Islamic Studies March 26, 2021

Islam and the Culture of Modern Egypt

From the Monarchy to the Republic

Mohammad Salama

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Egypt is often the focus of religious and political histories of early twentieth century. The striking hardening of nationalist and Islamic movements within Arab societies during this period is frequently …
Christian Studies March 25, 2021

The Reception of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Britain

East Comes West

Brendan McNamara

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Brendan McNamara, who teaches religion at University College Cork, Ireland, has published an excellent new book on the expansion of the Bahá’í faith into western Europe. In the late nineteenth …