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Middle Eastern Studies
Jewish Studies September 28, 2022

The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa

The Impact of World War II

Reeva Spector Simon

Hosted by Drora Arussy
Incorporating published and archival material, Reeva Spector Simon's book The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: The Impact of World War II (Routledge, 2019) fills an important gap in …

Middle Eastern Studies

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

Israel Studies September 27, 2022

The Invisible Palestinians

The Hidden Struggle for Inclusion in Jewish Tel Aviv

Andreas Hackl

Hosted by Akin Ajayi
The city of Tel Aviv presents itself as a bastion of liberal values, tolerance, and ultimately of freedom. But like many self-definitions, there is something of a gap between this …
Middle Eastern Studies September 22, 2022

A Sephardi Sea

Jewish Memories Across the Modern Mediterranean

Dario Miccoli

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
A Sephardi Sea: Jewish Memories Across the Modern Mediterranean (Indiana UP, 2022) tells the story of Jews from the southern shore of the Mediterranean who, between the late 1940s and …
Psychoanalysis September 19, 2022

Psychoanalysis Under Occupation

Practicing Resistance in Palestine

Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi

Hosted by J. J. Mull
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews co-authors Lara and Stephen Sheehi about their book, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2021). As they discuss in the interview, the …
Jewish Studies September 19, 2022

Demons in the Details

Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia

Sara Ronis

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
The Babylonian Talmud is full of stories of demonic encounters, and it also includes many laws that attempt to regulate such encounters. In Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel September 19, 2022

Queering Anti-Zionism

Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism

Corinne E. Blackmer

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Why do some scholars sacrifice truth and logic to political ideology and peer acceptance? With courage and intellectual integrity, queer scholar-activist Corinne Blackmer stages a pointed critique of scholars whose …
Jewish Studies September 12, 2022

Herod in History

Nicolaus of Damascus and the Augustan Context

Kimberley Czajkowski

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Most of our information about Herod the Great derives from the accounts found in Josephus' Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. Together they constitute a unique resource on one of the …
Middle Eastern Studies September 9, 2022

Worldmaking in the Long Great War

How Local and Colonial Struggles Shaped the Modern Middle East

Jonathan Wyrtzen

Hosted by Ronay Bakan
It is widely believed that the political problems of the Middle East date back to the era of World War I, when European colonial powers unilaterally imposed artificial borders on …
Middle Eastern Studies September 8, 2022

Sex in the Middle East and North Africa

L. L. Wynn and Angel M. Foster

Hosted by Mathew Gagné
L. L. Wynn and Angel M. Foster,'s edited volume Sex in the Middle East and North Africa (Vanderbilt UP, 2022) examines the sexual practices, politics, and complexities of the modern Arab world …
Middle Eastern Studies September 7, 2022

The Islamic Movement in Israel

Tilde Rosmer

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
Since its establishment in the late 1970s, Israel’s Islamic Movement has grown from a small religious revivalist organization focused on strengthening the faith of Muslim Palestinian citizens of Israel to …
Middle Eastern Studies September 2, 2022

Winning Lebanon

Youth Politics, Populism, and the Production of Sectarian Violence, 1920–1958

Dylan Baun

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
By the mid-twentieth century, youth movements around the globe ruled the streets. In Lebanon, young people in these groups attended lectures, sang songs, and participated in sporting events; their music …
Asian Review of Books September 1, 2022

Nine Quarters of Jerusalem

A New Biography of the Old City

Matthew Teller

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Jerusalem’s Old City is normally understood to be split into four quarters: the Jewish Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter. Those designations can be found …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel August 30, 2022

Minority Of One

The Unchaining of an Arab Mind

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even …
Ancient History August 29, 2022

The Life and Death of Ancient Cities

A Natural History

Greg Woolf

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The human race is on a 10,000 year urban adventure. Our ancestors wandered the planet or lived scattered in villages, yet by the end of this century almost all of …
Middle Eastern Studies August 29, 2022

On the Border

The Rise and Decline of the Most Political Club in the World

Shaul Adar

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
In December 2020, an Israeli football club made worldwide headlines. The news that a UAE royal had bought 50 per cent of Beitar's shares shook Israel and the football world …
Anthropology August 26, 2022

Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited

Capital and State Building in the West Bank

Kareem Rabie

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
In 2008, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad invited international investors to the first-ever Palestine Investment Conference, which was designed to jump-start the process of integrating Palestine into the global economy …
Israel Studies August 25, 2022

From Schlemiel to Sabra

Zionist Masculinity and Palestinian Hebrew Literature

Philip Hollander

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In From Schlemiel to Sabra: Zionist Masculinity and Palestinian Hebrew Literature (Indiana UP, 2019), Philip Hollander examines how masculine ideals and images of the New Hebrew man shaped the Israeli …
Israel Studies August 24, 2022

The Retrospective Imagination of A. B. Yehoshua

Yael Halevi-Wise

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Once referred to by the New York Times as the "Israeli Faulkner," A. B. Yehoshua's fiction invites an assessment of Israel's Jewish inheritance and the moral and political options that …
Human Rights August 24, 2022

Returned to Zero

The Case for Reparations to Civilians in Yemen

Ali Jameel

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In this episode Ari Barbalat talked to Ali Jameel, a researcher for Mwatana for Human Rights, about "Returned to Zero: The Case for Reparations to Civilians in Yemen." …
Islamic Studies August 19, 2022

An Anthology of Qur'anic Commentaries (vol. 2)

On Women

Karen Bauer and Feras Hamza

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
Karen Bauer and Feras Hamza's co-written book An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries (vol. 2): On Women (Oxford UP, 2022) is a collection of historical and contemporary commentaries on the Qur’an. It covers five …