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PODCAST

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

society & culture

All Episodes

59:05

Molly Crabapple, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/05

Molly Crabapple joins Michael Stauch to discuss the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, the subject of her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund (Random House, 2026). Once the most influential Jewish political force in Eastern Europe, the Bund was secular, socialist, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist. The Bundists fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but “here where we live.” In the first popular history of the Bund,

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56:46

Arpan Roy, "Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/01

Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference (U Toronto Press, 2025) sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. Arpan Roy presents an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming in on everyday life in working-class neighborhoods, and under conditions of perpetual war and instability. The book focuses on how Doms are able to sustain ethnic difference

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46:47

Christopher de Bellaigue, "The Golden Throne: The...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/29

What does a 16th century ruler reveal about the nature of power, past and present? Istanbul, 1538. The greatest of the Ottoman Sultans is at the pinnacle of world power, while his family and future are at the mercy of their own dynastic law: whichever of his five sons succeeds him must eventually kill all the others. So why not get a head start?For the next fifteen years, as Suleyman the Magnificent and his terrifying pirate captain Barbarossa face down imperial enemies across two hemispheres, the

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54:29

Ciruce A. Movahedi-Lankarani, "Accelerant: Energy...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/24

Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future world power, gas became an avenue for the country's developmentalist ambitions. The ability to build technologically sophisticated infrastructures served as a powerful tool of state legitimation, both before and after the 1979 Revolution, and tied top-down politics of modernization to bottom-up feelings of national belonging. Accelerant: Energy

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74:50

Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, "Boundaries of Belonging:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/23

Examining sectarian divergence in the early modern Middle East, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer's study provides a fresh perspective on the Sunni–Shi'i division. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and European sources, Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2026) explores the paradox of an Ottoman state that combined rigid ideological discourses with pragmatic governance. Through an analysis of key figures, events,

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53:45

Alex Boodrookas, "Comrades Estranged: Labor and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/20

In 1975, Kuwaiti workers orchestrated arguably the most powerful citizen-led movement for noncitizen rights in the history of the Persian Gulf. Their efforts built on decades of wide-ranging struggle over the meanings and outlines of citizenship. During the twentieth century, anticolonial nationalists, pro-democracy reformers, feminists, and labor organizers joined forces to fight for a more equitable citizenship regime. In so doing, they won a remarkable series of victories: political

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59:26

Adrian Ciani, "Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/17

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Through the centuries, popes and theologians marginalized the Jewish people, assigning them collective guilt for the death of Jesus Christ and claiming that the sacred territory of Palestine was the true patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church. With the advent of political Zionism in the nineteenth century, Catholic fears of a Jewish-dominated Palestine

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49:38

Samantha Ellis, "Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/17

I had the privilege of speaking with writer Samantha Ellis about her deeply moving new book, Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture (PegasusBooks, 2026). Our discussion explored not only the story of a disappearing language, but also the broader questions of memory, identity, and what it means to inherit a fragile cultural legacy. At the heart of Ellis’s book is Judeo-Iraqi Arabic—also known as Baghdadi Jewish Arabic or Hakimalna—a language once spoken by the Jews of

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36:17

Marielle Risse, "Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/15

In this episode of the New Books Network, we explore Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman (Anthem Press, 2026), with anthropologist Dr Marielle Risse. Drawing on nearly two decades of ethnographic fieldwork, Dr Risse offers a nuanced examination of marriage practices among Sunni Muslim communities in southern Oman, challenging many of the assumptions that often underpin Western discussions of gender, family, and personal autonomy. Rather than portraying marriage as either

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44:13

Robert Templer, "The Shah's Party: And the Iranian...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/11

In 1971, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi threw a party to celebrate the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire. It was planned to be a massive party, with tents set up in the desert, and invitations sent to just about every world leader across both the Western and Soviet blocs. Robert Templer writes about this celebration–and how it presaged the events of the Iranian Revolution of 1979–in his new book The Shah's Party: And the Iranian Revolution That Followed (Hurst, 2026). Robert Templer is a

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60:02

Homa Katouzian, "Iran and the Revolution: A History"...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/04

Iran is, once again, in global headlines, following U.S. strikes on the country earlier this year. Operation Epic Fury, as the Department of Defense called it, is the latest twist in Iran’s modern history, starting from the coup that brought the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power, through the 1956 coup against Mossadegh and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, to the present day’s tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.Homa Katouzian looks at this history in his latest book Iran and the Revolution: A

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43:06

Anand Gopal, "Days of Love and Rage: A Story of...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/06/04

From Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, an epic and enthralling account of six Syrians fighting for a better world, in the tradition of classic works by Philip Gourevitch and Katherine Boo.In 2011, in a northern Syrian city, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew a brutal dictatorship. For the next eighteen months, many of the citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times.Days of Love and Rage (Viking,

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20:29

Media, Power, and the Gaza Narrative

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/29

How Western media shapes public understanding of Gaza, Palestine, and conflict through language, political narratives, and global power structures.In this Nordic Asia Podcast episode, Khaled Ezzelarab, Director of the Middle East Institute Program at the American University in Cairo and a former journalist, discusses how Western media narratives shape public understanding of the Gaza war and the broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He argues that mainstream Western outlets such as the BBC, CNN,

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45:25

Timothy Mason Roberts, "After Barbary: Algeria's...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/28

After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Timothy Mason Roberts explores the connection between the United States and North Africa between the Barbary Wars of the early nineteenth century and the era of European decolonization after World War II. Dr. Roberts offers a new approach to the study of empires, highlighting the significance of Algeria in French-American relations from France's first occupation of the country through the first

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80:48

Utku Balaban, "Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/20

What explains the rise of religious populism in contemporary Turkish politics and society? How does industrialization help to explain change and continuity in social and religious life in Muslim majority countries? In his new book Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian Movements Mobilize Workers (University of California Press, 2025), Utku Balaban examines Turkey’s rapid post-Cold War industrialization and argues that the answers to these questions lie in a class analysis centered on the

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18:47

Beyond Minorities: Power, Identity, and Conflict in...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/15

Helen Haas speaks with political scientist Sean Lee about the changing relationship between majorities and minorities in the Middle East, the collapse of the post-October 2023 regional order, and why questions of citizenship, identity, and political power remain at the centre of conflicts from Syria and Lebanon to Israel–Palestine.In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Dr. Sean Lee, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, discusses the evolving

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62:38

Zeina Al-Azmeh, "Syrian Intellectuals in Exile: The...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/09

Zeina Al-Azmeh’s Syrian Intellectuals in Exile: The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving (Cambridge UP, 2026) captures a group of intellectuals forced to leave Syria, primarily after the events of 2011. Having wound up in either Paris or Berlin these intellectuals are forced to reconsider their relation to their homeland, including the ongoing revolution, while navigating their new Western homes. As Al-Azmeh shows, this creates a diverse intellectual field which, while shaped by different

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60:51

Robin Andersen, "The Complicit Lens: US Media...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/09

Robin Andersen's latest book, The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza (OR Books, 2026), is a forensic and unflinching examination of how establishment media abandoned journalistic integrity to manufacture consent for the genocide in Gaza, creating an environment in which unprecedented escalations and war crimes have become a terrifying new normal.Since October 7th 2023, the story of what was to become the genocide in Gaza was immediately shaped by the mobilisation of a

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5:45

Edith Szanto, "Twelver Shi'i Self-flagellation Rites...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/07

Edith Szanto’s Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab (Edinburgh UP, 2025) is a striking and deeply immersive ethnographic study that takes the reader into the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab in Syria. This town was a vibrant center of Shi‘i life, pilgrimage, and healing, especially for Iraqi refugees until the 2011 Syrian uprising. By combining meticulous fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2010 with rich historical and social context, Szanto shows how

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71:29

Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/02

Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. And he died in 1975, the start of the Lebanese Civil War. But who was Imad Nuwayhid? Was he a leftist intellectual? A self-interested hotel worker? A fighter dedicated to Palestinian liberation? A tragic symbol of what happened to those caught in the crosshairs during the war? Through archival and oral history, Beirut Radical finds that Imad was none of

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364 results

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