Marc Owen Jones of Hamad bin Khalifa University talks about his latest book, Political Repression in Bahrain, with Marc Lynch on this week's podcast. The book explores Bahrain's modern history through the lens of repression, and spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, looking at all forms of political repression from legal, statecraft, police brutali ... Show More
Apr 2025
The Revolution within (S. 14, Ep. 13)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Yasmin Moll of the University of Michigan joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, The Revolution Within: Islamic Media and the Struggle for a New Egypt. This book challenges conventional accounts of the 2011 revolution and its aftermath as ... Show More
45m 39s
Apr 2025
Road to October 7 (S. 14, Ep. 12)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Erik Skare of the University of Oslo joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Road to October 7: A Brief History of Palestinian Islamism. In this book, Erik Skare argues that Palestinian Islamism is far more complex and dynamic than general ... Show More
48m 41s
Mar 2025
Decentralization, Local Governance, and Inequality (S. 14, Ep. 10)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Kristen Kao and Ellen Lust of the University of Gothenburg join Marc Lynch to discuss their new book, Decentralization, Local Governance, and Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa. This book directs our attention toward the ways in ... Show More
48m 8s
Sep 2023
FADI BARDAWIL | Arab Marxism, the New Left & Political Realities | Conversations
Learn about Arab Marxism, radical patriarchal politics, and Lebanon’s political economy over the last century in this conversation with professor Fadi Bardawil from Duke University. Starting with his book “Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation” ... Show More
1h 6m
Apr 2024
“History Is Not Just a Pile of Ruins” Abdaljawad Omar on a Deformed Colonialism
In this episode Abdaljawad (Abboud) Omar returns to the show. This is the lightly edited audio from a livestream we recorded on March 24th Abdaljawad Omar is a writer, analyst, and lecturer based in Ramallah, Palestine. He currently lectures in the Department of Philosophy and ... Show More
1h 34m
Jan 2023
M. R. Sharan, "Last Among Equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar's Villages" (Westland, 2021)
M. R. Sharan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, studying questions centred around development economics and political economy. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University in 2020 and was previously at the Delhi School of Economics and Hansraj College. His no ... Show More
45m 32s
Apr 2024
Thawra Ep. 8 – Origins of the Arab New Left
Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, fr ... Show More
1h 10m
Mar 2024
Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat, "Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media" (Syracuse UP, 2024)
In their edited volume Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media (Syracuse University Press, 2024), Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat complicate discussions of the veil and highlight the prevalent anxieties surrounding it. The edited volume is unique in its focus ... Show More
50m 15s
Jun 2021
FreshEd #243 – Race, Identity, and Education (Gary Younge)
Today the journalist, author, and academic, Gary Younge, joins me to talk about race, identity, and education. Our conversation starts with his reflections on the UK Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which published its report in March. We then touch on a ra ... Show More
55m 13s
Apr 2024
Sharia Law, the State & Modernity’s Moral Predicament | Wael Hallaq
Renowned professor of ethics, law and political thought and leading scholar of Islamic Legal Studies, Dr Wael Hallaq, joins us on this episode of the afikra podcast to discuss Sharia law, the modern state, Legal Orientalism, and the idea of a "stateless" yet still orderly world.D ... Show More
1h 13m
Aug 2021
Mark Farha, "Lebanon: The Rise and Fall of a Secular State under Siege" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Why has secularism faced such challenges in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular? In light of dominating headlines about the spread of sectarianism and the so-called death of Arab secularism, Mark Farha addresses the need for a thorough examination of the history of secul ... Show More
56m 51s
May 2014
Marwa Elshakry, “Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
The work of Charles Darwin, together with the writing of associated scholars of society and its organs and organisms, had a particularly global reach in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Marwa Elshakry‘s new book offers a fascinating window into the ways that thi ... Show More
59m 49s