x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

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

92:01

Mostafa Hussein, "Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/05/01

In the decades before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, native and immigrant Jews in Palestine mediated between Jewish and Arab cultures while navigating their evolving identities as settler colonists. Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine (Princeton UP, 2025) challenges the conventional view that Hebrew thinkers were dismissive of Arabo-Islamic culture, revealing how they both adopted and adapted elements of it that

en

47:11

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/23

Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we have for how slavery worked in practice comes from the Cairo Geniza, a cache of hundreds of thousands of discarded documents from a medieval synagogue in Cairo.Craig Perry examined these documents for his new book: Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History (Princeton University Press, 2026). The book dives into everyday documents, like wills

en

60:12

James Bultema, "Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/21

In Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016 (Springer Nature, 2026), James Bultema identifies and investigates four central factors that gave rise to the Turkish Protestant movement in the latter half of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first century. Drawing on qualitative interviews and historical studies the book explores the complex interplay of religious freedom, missionary activity, interdependent choice, and multilevel plausibility structures. An

en

48:38

Nathaniel Greenberg, "The Long War of Ideas: American...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/19

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, US officials identified the so-called battle for hearts and minds as the “second front” in the war on terror. A wave of funding flowed into public diplomacy in the Middle East, seeking to change views of the United States through Arabic-language communications—often while hiding the traces of American origins. To what extent did this vast propaganda apparatus sway Arab public opinion? Which ideas and actors shaped American public diplomacy in this period

en

52:07

Sabri Jiryis, "The Foundations of Zionism" (Ebb...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/19

Translated into English for the first time since its original publication by the PLO's Palestine Research Center, this book extensively details the origins of Zionism and its development as an ideology and political project that has wrought havoc in the Middle East and beyond over the last century. The Foundations of Zionism (Ebb Books, 2025) chronicles this development from Zionism's early origins up to the establishment of the British mandate over Palestine in 1923, refuting many of the

en

62:49

Christian Henderson, "Monarchies of Extraction: The...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/12

In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction: The Gulf States in the Global Food System (Cambridge UP, 2026) explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism within the global food system. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian

en

47:00

Radio ReOrient 14.1: State of the Ummah: “A War...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/10

This is Radio ReOrient. Welcome to our 14th season of navigating the post-Western and connecting the Islamosphere.We begin this season with Radio ReOrient’ s occasional series The State of the Ummah. In this episode Shehla Khan, Mona Makinejadbanadaki and Salman Sayyid go beyond the headlines in trying to understand the narratives that shape the War Against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Developing concepts from Critical Muslim Studies, they situate the latest phase of hostilities in a broader

en

31:19

Beth Derderian, "Art Capital: Museum Politics and the...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/04/03

Museums often served nationalist and imperialist interests in the past, but the primary force in the 21st century is the market. Museum franchising—exemplified by the Louvre Abu Dhabi—is one of the most visible cases of the increasing entanglement of art and museums with capital interests. Such projects are often touted as global enterprises diversifying the art world. Frequently, critics of these controversial projects question these claims and market influence.The intersection of these two

en

35:56

Michael Allan, "Cinema before the World: The Global...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/29

Cinema Before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Brothers (Fordham UP, 2026) investigates the transnational origins of filmmaking by focusing on a case study in world cinema—the 1896-1897 voyage of one of the Lumière Brothers camera operators, Alexandre Promio, across North Africa and the Middle East. The book shows how the sites in these early films are not simply backdrops, but integral to film form and its global history. Connecting a series of filmic principles (framing, tracking

en

46:57

On Our Continuing Age of Oil with Journalist Stanley...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/28

Stanley Reed has been covering energy and the Middle East from London for more than three decades, most recently for The New York Times. With the war in Iran and its threat to global energy supplies as backdrop, we have a wide-ranging conversation about the Age of Oil. Despite longstanding predictions of Peak Oil, this era is by no means over, Reed tells me. Big Oil is used to political risk, as in the Persian Gulf region. Even now, the oil majors are busy exploring for deposits in Namibia

en

31:01

James McDougall, "Worlds of Islam: A Global History"...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/27

From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. In Worlds of Islam: A Global History (Basic Books, 2026), James McDougall explores its origins and transformations from Late Antiquity to the digital age.Over the span of a thousand years, armies, missionaries, and merchants carried it to the edges of Europe, the coasts of Southeast Asia, and the remote interior of China. By the nineteenth century, Islam encompassed a world of great diversity, from Muslim-ruled empires

en

53:19

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/21

What did slavery actually look like in the everyday lives of Jews in the medieval Middle East? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Craig Perry to discuss his groundbreaking book Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History (Princeton UP, 2026).Drawing on the extraordinary archive of the Cairo Geniza, Perry reconstructs a hidden world of enslaved people, merchants, and households in medieval Egypt. These fragments—letters, contracts, and legal questions preserved for

en

70:10

Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/20

The emancipatory potential and limits of land justice, when land is at once home, property, territory, and homeland.Peasant farming was once an integral part of Palestine's agrarian fabric. But after military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israeli land confiscations and economic policies pushed rural cultivators into wage labor. In recent decades, Palestinian land titling and private developers have driven the slow transformation of agricultural land into real estate. In Plots and Deeds:

en

37:41

Matthew Moran et al., "Coercing Syria on Chemical...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/14

In 2012, US President Barack Obama stated that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on its population would cross a red line that would require the US government to reconsider its approach to the civil war then underway in Syria. Syria subsequently used such weapons, creating a policy dilemma for the United States about how to respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violation of the red line.In Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons (Oxford UP, 2025), Matthew Moran, Wyn Q. Bowen, and

en

48:23

Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/03/12

Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He’s the author of several books dealing with Iran, including most recently Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (Princeton University Press, 2025). Nasr was born in Tehran in 1960 and is currently a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In our talk, he discusses his surprise at the resilience the Iranian

en

32:13

Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/02/21

I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) is a young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visitMai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to

en

63:10

Eray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/02/20

Extractivism—exploiting the earth for resources—has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world where ecological and humanitarian sensibilities are unprecedentedly widespread? Eray Çaylı argues it does so by mobilizing these sensibilities in new ways. Extractivism is no longer only about moving the earth—displacing peoples, fossils, minerals, and waters—but also leaving those who witness this violent displacement sentimentally moved. Earthmoving:

en

39:44

David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/02/19

In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent

en

74:53

Sary Zananiri, "Photographing Biblical Modernity:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/02/12

This open access book offers the first in-depth appraisal of the photographic archive of Frank Scholten (1881–1942), a queer Dutch photographer and Catholic convert whose work in Palestine between 1921 and 1923 provides a remarkable lens on the intersecting dynamics of modernity, religion, colonialism, and visual culture. Drawing on over 26,000 photographs, it situates Scholten's work within transnational religious, colonial, and nationalist networks.Employing a relational

en

25:54

Najati Sidqi, "Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/01/30

In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, Sidqi concealed a critical component of his life from the world and his family. He was an underground activist for the Palestinian Communist Party, a risky and influential pursuit that took him to early Bolshevik Moscow, British courts and prison cells in Palestine, Nazi Germany, intrigue-heavy interwar Paris, and Civil War Spain, Morocco, and Algeria

en

364 results

Similar Podcasts

وجوه من الـظل

Medi1 Podcast

Alex Jones Debunked

Anonymous

Classic Philosophy Library

The Podcast Network

Ça peut vous arriver

RTL

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

Marshall Poe