About Tugrul Mende

Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher.


Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher.


NBN Episodes hosted by Tugrul:

Tarek El-Ariss, "Water on Fire: A Memoir of War" (Other Press, 2024)

April 24, 2024

Water on Fire

Tarek El-Ariss
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

In this evocative, insightful memoir, a leading voice in Middle Eastern Studies revisits his childhood in war-torn Lebanon and his family’s fascinatin…

Nora E. H. Parr, "Novel Palestine: Nation Through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah" (U California Press, 2023)

April 23, 2024

Novel Palestine

Nora E. H. Parr
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Palestinian writing imagines the nation, not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into a dist…

Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, "A Nose and Three Eyes" (Hoopoe, 2024)

April 14, 2024

A Nose and Three Eyes

Ihsan Abdel Kouddous
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Written by iconic Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, this classic of love, desire, and family breakdown smashed through taboos when first publish…

Emily Drumsta, "Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation" (U California Press, 2024)

April 9, 2024

Ways of Seeking

Emily Drumsta
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

In Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation (U California Press, 2024), Emily Drumsta traces the influence of detective fict…

Eric Calderwood, "On Earth Or in Poems: The Many Lives of Al-Andalus" (Harvard UP, 2023)

April 8, 2024

On Earth Or in Poems

Eric Calderwood
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

During the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was home not to Spain and Portugal but rather to al-Andalus. Ruled by a succession of Islamic dynasties,…

Eileen Kane et al., "Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 20, 2024

Russian-Arab Worlds

Eileen Kane, Masha Kirasirova, and Margaret Litvin
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

The roots of the Arab world’s current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Ar…

Sofia Rehman, "Gendering the Hadith Tradition: Recentering the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers" (Oxford UP, 2024)

March 12, 2024

Gendering the Hadith Tradition

Sofia Rehman
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Gendering the Hadith Tradition: Recentering the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers (Oxford UP, 2024) presents for the first time a partial tr…

Laila Shereen Sakr, "Arabic Glitch: Technoculture, Data Bodies, and Archives" (Stanford UP, 2023)

December 18, 2023

Arabic Glitch

Laila Shereen Sakr
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Laila Shereen Sakr's book Arabic Glitch: Technoculture, Data Bodies, and Archives (Stanford UP, 2023) explores an alternative origin story of twenty-f…

Elizabeth M. Perego, "Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021" (Indiana UP, 2023)

November 20, 2023

Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021

Elizabeth M. Perego
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

In times of peace as well as conflict, humor has served Algerians as a tool of both unification and division. Humor has also assisted Algerians of var…

Anna Ziajka Stanton, "The Worlding of Arabic Literature: Language, Affect, and the Ethics of Translatability" (Fordham UP, 2023)

October 18, 2023

The Worlding of Arabic Literature

Anna Ziajka Stanton
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Critics have long viewed translating Arabic literature into English as an ethically fraught process of mediating between two wholly incommensurable la…

Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, "Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future" (Stanford UP, 2023)

October 11, 2023

Maghreb Noir

Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik
Hosted by Tugrul Mende
Listen:

Upon their independence, Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian governments turned to the Global South and offered military and financial aid to Black liber…

Sherif M. Meleka, "Suleiman's Ring" (Hoopoe, 2023)

October 11, 2023

Suleiman's Ring

Sherif M. Meleka
Hosted by Tugrul Mende
Listen:

Today I talked to Sherif Meleka about his novel Suleiman’s Ring (Hoopoe, 2023) An enchanted ring brings good fortune to an Egyptian oud player in …