UChicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies: Recent Episodes
UChicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Madi Williamson and Leena Zahra of In-Sight Collaborative share their mission of improving humanitarian aid by promoting autonomy and dignity among displaced populations. They discuss their experiences working on the ground in refugee camps in Greece and what drew them to this line of work. Interview by Krishna S. Kulkarni, Outreach Coordinator for the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies. This episode was produced by Nora Kane.
Syrian American hip-hop artist, poet, and peace activist Omar Offendum discusses hip-hop as history and education with Thomas E.R. Maguire, Associate Director of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Omar tells the story behind his recent Little Syria project and addresses his experience as Citizen Artist Fellow at the Kennedy Center, the bilingual nature of his work, and his collaborations with the Arab American National Museum, Chicago Public Schools, and CMES K-12 Arabic outreach programs. This episode was produced by Nora Kane.
Views and opinions expressed in the episode are the participants’ own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode of “Ventures,” Professor Fadi Bardawil of Duke University discusses his new book, Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation. Bardawil traces the rise and fall of the Lebanese New Left during the 1960s. He focuses mainly on the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon, a small group of militant intellectuals who mostly left political practice for the academy after the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. Interview by Professor Angie Heo, University of Chicago.
In this episode of Ventures, Mandy Terc, the executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project (known as MERIP), explains how the organization tries to make the knowledge of academics digestible to a more general audience. She also discusses her own fieldwork in Syria before the civil war, and the ethical questions that arise when White western researchers write about people in the Middle East. Interview by Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven.
Views and opinions expressed in the episode are the participants' own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode of “Ventures,” Professor Tahera Qutbuddin discusses her recently published book, Arabic Oration: Art and Function. Qutbuddin’s book, 10 years in the making, presents theoretical tools to analyze speeches and sermons given in the early Islamic period, from the 7th to 8th centuries AD. Though the book’s true scope is enormous, Qutbuddin also analyzes modern day orations, from Friday sermons she attended at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, to speeches by ISIS leaders she viewed on YouTube. Interview by Erin Atwell.
Ideas and opinions expressed in the episode belong to the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode of Ventures, visiting Israel Institute Professor Noa Lavi explains why it’s worthwhile to analyze Israeli TV through a sociological lens. Interview by Zak Witus.
Ideas and opinions expressed in the episode are the participants' own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
“When you change medium of intellectual exchange, what happens to the content?” asks Professor Ahmed El Shamsy. In this episode of Ventures, El Shamsy discusses his forthcoming book Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition. The book examines the era when the printing press was adopted throughout the Arab world. He looks at the people and forces responsible for translating classic literature into the modern vernacular of print, and asks what happens when a society transitions from a manuscript culture to a print culture. Interview by Firas Alkhateeb. Check out El Shamsy’s new book here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174563/rediscovering-the-islamic-classics
Ideas and opinions expressed in the episode belong to the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Fadi “the fdz” Baki and Omar Khouri are co-founders and editors of the Lebanese comics magazine Samandal. In this episode of Ventures the two take listeners back to the comic’s early days, to Lebanon in the year 2006; post-war with Israel, but before an established comics scene existed in the country. The two wanted to create a space where people could tell authentic stories in their own way. And in September of 2007, Samandal was born. Interview by Benny Vanderburgh and Yzza Sedrati.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode, Barbara Mann, a professor of Cultural Studies and Hebrew Literature at The Jewish Theological Seminary, discusses how graphic novels serve as a unique space for historical discourse. Citing commercially-popular examples like Maus and The Rabbi’s Cat, Mann concludes that the language of graphic novels, their unique way of presenting anecdotes, and their narrators enable the form to explore historical narratives. She argues that through a conversation of language, cartoon visuals, and the literal story-telling space on the page, comics can mimic the experience of the past. This lecture is part of the Farouk Mustafa Memorial Friday Lecture Series.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode of Ventures, Professor Angie Heo discusses her new book The Political Lives of Saints. Heo challenges the idea that in Egypt Christian saints and icons hold significance only for the country’s Christian population. She argues that public narratives of saints intertwine with narratives of the nation, and these stories bind Christians and Muslims together, especially during periods of national humiliation and turmoil. Interview by Lydia Yousief. Special thanks to Yousief Yousief for sharing his story.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Is there an Egyptian Orientalism? Joel Gordon approaches this question by tracing the representations of India and Indians in modern Egyptian cinema. In this lecture, Gordon puts these cinematic representations in the context of shifting relations between Egypt and India through the 20th century. Reaching from Suez to Shalimar, Gordon narrates the connection between Egyptian cinema, culture, and an important international relationship.
This lecture is part of the Farouk Mustafa Memorial Friday Lecture Series.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
With nearly 25 million attendees, the Arba’een Pilgrimage in Iraq is one of the largest public gatherings in the world. Banned under Saddam Hussein, Shi’a Muslims from around the world have renewed this annual ritual in recent years, defying sectarian violence and the threat of ISIS. Alex Shams, a Ph.D student in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, recently traveled to Iraq to study this extraordinary human phenomenon. Along the road to Kerbala, he witnessed the new forms of solidarity that Arba’een is forging between Shi’is from Iraq to India. Interview by Krishna S. Kulkarni.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this episode, Sophia Azeb excavates genealogies of the Afro-Arab world. Highlighting the Pan-African Festival of 1969 in Algeria, Azeb shows how art functioned as a cultural exchange between African diaspora communities and Arabs in the Middle East. In the backdrop of the Algerian War for Independence, this festival collected the various anti-colonialist, Pan-African, and Third Worldist ideas underpinning what Azeb dubs the “Afro-Arab imaginary.” Interview by Marie Helmy.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this lecture, Hayder Al-Mohammad discusses how modern-day Iraqis prepare for death, either their own or within their communities. Placing post-invasion Iraq in the context of the Gulf War and subsequent U.S. sanctions, this episode explores a suffering healthcare system where many Iraqis and their families, especially amongst the poor, face deadly illnesses like cancer without aid. This lecture is part of the Farouk Mustafa Memorial Friday Lecture Series. Check out Al-Mohammad’s work here: http://uccs.academia.edu/HayderAlMohammad
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
In this interview, Alireza Doostdar plunges into the world of Iranian occult sciences. His ethnographic research, or ‘deep hanging out,’ introduces us to a diverse cast of characters: New Age spiritists, fortune tellers, and ordinary people grappling with what lies beyond the natural. Drawing on the ideas and practices of these interlocutors, Doostdar reveals the symbiotic relationship between occult and rational thinking. Interview by Rachel Carbonara. Check out Doostdar’s book from Princeton University Press: The Iranian Metaphysicals Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11335.html
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
With almost 2 billion followers, Islam has spread far beyond the land of its birth. Its origins, however, remain difficult for historians to explain.
In this episode of Ventures, Fred Donner discusses the challenges of studying early Islam and the narratives of Islam’s emergence in the 7th century CE. Drawing on decades of research, Donner complicates the conventional historical account by raising questions about the boundaries of the early Muslim community, or as he calls it, the “Believers Movement,” and the Jews and Christians that may have constituted it. Interview by Alexander Barna.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Between 1949 and 1951, 123,000 Iraqi Jews emigrated to the newly-established state of Israel.
In this interview, Orit Bashkin explores the nuanced world of this diaspora: Jews who spoke Arabic and struggled to survive transit camps; sometimes collaborating with Palestinian communists or working with the Israeli government. This history is a cautionary but hopeful tale of complex identities, multiculturalism, and coexistence. Interview by Aidan Kaplan.
The views expressed in this podcast are the participants' own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.