About Nadirah Mansour

Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.

NBN Episodes hosted by Nadirah:

Massoud Hayoun, "When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History" (New Press, 2019)

April 21, 2021

When We Were Arabs

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…

Hoda El Shakry, "The Literary Qur'an: Narrative Ethics in the Maghreb" (Fordham UP, 2019)

March 24, 2021

The Literary Qur'an

Hoda El Shakry
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Hoda El Shakry’s book The Literary Qurʾan: Narrative Ethics in the Maghreb (Fordham University Press, 2019) was awarded the ACLA’s 2018 Helen Tartar B…

Hawraa Al Hassan, "Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

March 22, 2021

Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State

Hawraa Al-Hassan
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Hawraa Al Hassan’s Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba’thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration, 1968-2003 (University of Edinbu…

Ünver Rüstem, "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton UP, 2019)

April 28, 2020

Ottoman Baroque

Ünver Rüstem
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In Istanbul, there is a mosque on every hill. Cruising along the Bosphorus, either for pleasure, or like the majority of Istanbul’s denizens, for tran…

K. B. Berzock, "Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa" (Princeton UP, 2019)

December 23, 2019

Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time

Kathleen Bickford Berzock
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

The companion publication to the 2019-2020 traveling exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Sahara…

Humphrey Davies and Lesley Lababidi, "A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo" (AU in Cairo Press, 2018)

September 25, 2019

A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo

Humphrey Davies and Lesley Lababidi
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Guides have been written to the city of Cairo for generations. Whether they’re for foreigners who’ve come to the city or its residents. However, it mi…

Aaron Rock-Singer, "Practicing Islam in Egypt: Print Media and Islamic Revival" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

June 7, 2019

Practicing Islam in Egypt

Aaron Rock-Singer
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Discussions of Middle East politics will inevitably bring Islamism to the table and with it, questions of how Islam in its current iterations came to …

Ahmad Atif Ahmad, "Pitfalls of Scholarship: Lessons from Islamic Studies" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

February 7, 2019

Pitfalls of Scholarship

Ahmad Atif Ahmad
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Ahmad Atif Ahmad’s Pitfalls of Scholarship: Lessons from Islamic Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) is a unique reflection on the field of Islamic stu…

Suzanne Schneider, "Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2018)

December 31, 2018

Mandatory Separation

Suzanne Schneider
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

The history of Palestine is overly political; most studies, especially of the Mandate period, when the British effectively colonized Palestine, focus …

Seth Anziska, "Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo" (Princeton UP, 2018)

December 17, 2018

Preventing Palestine

Seth Anziska
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

The question of Palestinian autonomy has been a key element of Middle Eastern and Arab politics for much of the last century. A new history, by Seth A…

Hüseyin Yılmaz, "Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2018)

December 7, 2018

Caliphate Redefined

Hüseyin Yılmaz
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Re…

J.R. Osborn, "Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design" (Harvard UP, 2017)

November 12, 2018

Letters of Light

J.R. Osborn
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Arabic script is astounding! Not only because it represents one of the most commonly spoken languages today –that is, the Arabic language– but because…

Daniel Stolz, "The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

November 5, 2018

The Lighthouse and the Observatory

Daniel Stolz
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Both a history of science and a history of Islam, The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge Univ…

Joseph Ben Prestel, "Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860-1910" (Oxford UP, 2017)

September 12, 2018

Emotional Cities

Joseph Ben Prestel
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Joseph Ben Prestel talks with us about Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860-1910 (Oxford University Press, 2017), blend…

Lev Weitz, "Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)

September 4, 2018

Between Christ and Caliph

Lev Weitz
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Recent years have seen new waves of research in Syriac studies, the medieval Middle East, and family history. Combining all three, Lev Weitz’s Between…

Ahmad Dallal, "Islam without Europe: Traditions of Reform in Eighteenth-Century Islamic Thought" (UNC Press, 2018)

August 21, 2018

Islam without Europe

Ahmad Dallal
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In Middle Eastern and Islamic intellectual history, there has long been an assumption of decline in the eighteenth century, right before the nineteent…

Gary Fields, "Enclosure: Palestinian Landscapes in a Historical Mirror" (U California Press, 2017)

August 16, 2018

Enclosure

Gary Fields
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Inspired by the usage of the term ‘enclosure’ to describe the Separation Wall in Israel-Palestine on a visit he made to the West Bank, Gary Fields in …

Eve Krakowski, "Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Women’s Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture" (Princeton UP, 2017)

August 9, 2018

Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt

Eve Krakowski
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

History is only recently opening up to previously marginalized groups: it is only just now that women’s history is being explored across different his…

Alexander Bevilacqua, "The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment" (Harvard UP, 2018)

July 16, 2018

The Republic of Arabic Letters

Alexander Bevilacqua
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2018), Alexander Bevilacqua uncovers a different si…

Sebastian Conrad, "What is Global History?" (Princeton UP, 2016)

July 11, 2018

What is Global History?

Sebastian Conrad
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

The last two decades have seen a surge in global histories, be they global histories of food, of ideas, or social movements. But why this move away fr…

Elias Muhanna, "The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition" (Princeton UP, 2017)

July 2, 2018

The World in a Book

Elias Muhanna
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Described as a small book about a very large book, The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition (Princeton University Press,…

Hala Auji, "Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut" (Brill, 2016)

June 5, 2018

Printing Arab Modernity

Hala Auji
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In Middle Eastern history, the printing press has been both over- and under-assigned significance as an agent of social change. Hala Auji’s Printing A…

A. James McAdams, "Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party" (Princeton UP, 2017)

June 4, 2018

Vanguard of the Revolution

A. James McAdams
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Is there a difference between the Communist Party as an idea and the Communist Party in practice? A. James McAdams thinks so and takes the global appr…

Alden Young, "Transforming Sudan: Decolonization, Economic Development, and State Formation" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

May 29, 2018

Transforming Sudan

Alden Young
Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

Telling the story of a former colony post-independence is tricky, no matter if it’s a colony in Latin America, the Middle East or East Asia. Where doe…