Venetia Porter is an Honorary Research Fellow at the British Museum. Formerly Curator of Islamic and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art at the British Museum, her published titles include "Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa", "The Islamic World: A History in Objects", "Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam" and "Word Into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East".  Her mother, Thea Porter, known as the queen of 1960s Bohemian Chic, fused a love for Central Asian textiles with her personal experiences in Beirut working between Fashion & Interior Design. Her illu ..read more

This episode of the afikra podcast was recorded on April 10th at 1pm Palestine Time Lorenzo Kamel teaches Global History and History of the Middle East and North Africa at the University of Turin. He has held teaching and research positions at Harvard University, the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, ‘Ain Shams University in Cairo, and a number of other universities in Europe and the Middle East. His most recent books are 'History Below the Global' (Routledge 2024) and 'The Middle from Empire to Sealed Identities' (Edinburgh UP 2020). Connect with Lorenzo ? https://twitter.com/lorenzokamel ..read more

This episode was recorded on May 3rd 2024. Maysa Jalbout is a global education advocate, philanthropy executive and impact advisor. She is an industry veteran and led the establishment of Al Ghurair Foundation, the Queen Rania Foundation and many other private and corporate foundations. A recognized leader in international development and philanthropy, Maysa has over 25 years of experience in building effective organizations, initiatives and innovative partnerships in Canada, the Middle East, and other territories. Connect with Maysa ? https://twitter.com/maysajalbout Listen to the Impact Room ..read more

Atef Said is an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, and a sociologist who's passionate about politics, revolutions and social change. His scholarship engages with the fields of sociological theory, political sociology, historical sociology, sociology of the Middle East, and global sociology. His book "Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities & Counterrevolution in Egypt" examines the 2011 Egyptian Revolution to trace the expansive range of liberatory possibilities and containment at the heart of every revolution. Connect with Atef ? https://twitter.co ..read more

Roberto Fabbri is an architect, researcher, and associate professor at Zayed University, College of Arts and Creative Enterprises (UAE). His research interest engages with the notion of narrative spaces, reading the role of heritage and architecture in the definition of processes such as modernization, identity-making, knowledge exchange and establishment of traditions. With an emphasis on the Middle East and the Gulf, Roberto’s research embraces 20th-century architecture and its potential reuse as well as cultural spaces (museums and exhibitions) in the Global South. He co-authored the double ..read more

Michael Christopher Low received his PhD from Columbia University in 2015. He is the director of the University of Utah's Middle East Center and his primary research and teaching interests include the Ottoman Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Ocean world, and environmental history. He is the author of Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj (Columbia University Press, 2020) which in 2021 won the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award. Connect with Michael ? https://twitter.com/mchrislow?lang=en Theme music: Peninsular, Tarek Yamani ? https://spoti ..read more

This episode was recorded on March 27th, 2024. Zahra Hankir is a Lebanese-British journalist, editor and author. She was awarded a Jack R. Howard Fellowship to attend the Columbia Journalism School and holds degrees in politics and Middle Eastern studies. Her first book "Our Women on the Ground" was a bestseller and won the Susan Koppelman award for best anthology in feminist studies. This second book "Eyeliner: A Cultural History" was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ pick and had starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Connect with Zahra ? https://www.i ..read more

M’hamed Oualdi is full professor of history at Sciences Po-Paris. He is a historian of Early Modern and Modern North Africa trained in Arabic at Inalco-Paris and in history at the Sorbonne University (Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne) from which he obtained his PhD in 2008. Prior to joining the faculty at Sciences Po, he was associate professor at Princeton University (2013-2019) and maître de conferences at Inalco-Paris (2010-2013). His research has centered on two main topics: slavery and its social impacts on Ottoman Tunisia and the many effects of transitioning from the Ottoman rule to a Fre ..read more

Mona Fawaz is a Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She is also the co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab at AUB, and serves as the director of the Social Justice and the City research program at the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy (also at AUB). Mona was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies at Harvard University during the 2014/15 academic year and in Summer 2017. Connect with Mona ? https://www.linkedin.com/in/mona-fawaz-b245058/?originalSubdomain=lb Beirut Urban Lab is a collaborative and interdisciplinary research space ..read more

This afikra podcast episode with Hamed Bukhamseen and Ali Ismail Karimi of Civil Architecture delves into the architectural, geographic, cultural, and historic fabric of "the Gulf". We ask what and where is the Gulf? Is it a concrete geography or an abstract entity? Ali and Hamed reflect on what it means to be of and from this region and how this has evolved over time. Through an economic and political lens, they talk about the branding of the Gulf, the intellectual project behind it, and the impact of neoliberal policies on its present and future. Finally, we ask them both to compare and cont ..read more