Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar Turkey (University of California Press, 2022) is a vivid portrait of the art world of 1950s Turkey in which Sarah-Neel Smith offers a new framework for analyzing global modernisms of the twentieth century: economic development.
After World War II, a cohort of influential Turkish modernists built a new art ... Show More
Yesterday
Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025)
Faisal Devji's Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale UP, 2025) is a compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor. Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began ... Show More
1h 4m
Nov 21
Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Why do some revolutions fail and succumb to counterrevolutions, whereas others go on to establish durable rule?
Marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900 and new evidence from the reversal of Egypt's 2011 revolution, in Return of Tyranny: Why Counterre ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 14
Basit Kareem Iqbal, "The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Basit Kareem Iqbal's new book The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution (Fordham UP, 2025) uses ethnographic scenes from Jordan and Canada to contextualize the role of Muslim charities and community organizations that support displaced refugees from t ... Show More
1h 16m
Jan 2024
ALIA AL-SENUSSI | Why We Should Pay Attention to Cultural Patronage & the Creative Economy in the Arab Region | afikra عفكرة Podcast #390
<p>Finally, she highlights the critical role that artists and their art play as “interpreters of our time” and the difficulties of building private and public collections, and shares her “playbook” for building a successful cultural institution. For art lovers and curious minds a ... Show More
57m 37s
Dec 2022
GANZEER | Graphic Novels, making art during Arab Spring and more | Conversations
<p>Ganzeer talked about his work as a muralist and street artist and how the Egyptian Revolution was a turning point in his career.</p><p>Described as a “chameleon” by Carlo McCormick in the <i>New York Times</i>, Ganzeer operates seamlessly between art, design, and storytelling, ... Show More
58m 56s
Aug 2023
SULTAN AL-QASSEMI & DR RIDHA MOUMNI | A Historic Exhibition of Arab Art at Christie's London | Conversations
<p>What was it like curating the biggest exhibition of Arab art happening right now? Why is “Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation” such a landmark exhibition? We sat down with the exhibition’s curator and deputy chair of Christie’s MENA, Dr Ridha Moumni, and the fo ... Show More
49m 48s
Feb 2022
Kristina Wilson, "Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design" (Princeton UP, 2021)
In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and spare, geometric furnishings. Yet despite our continued fascination, we rarely consider how this iconic design sensibility was mar ... Show More
1h 3m
Jun 2023
KIRSTEN SCHEID | Fantasmic Objects | Conversations
<p>In this episode of the afikra podcast, Professor Kirsten Scheid invites us into the world of Modern Art in Lebanon, and Lebanon through the lens of Modern Art. </p><p>We explore what art meant in the 1920s, before the establishment of the Lebanese state, how national imaginari ... Show More
1 h
Nov 2021
Bahia Shehab and Haytham Nawar, "A History of Arab Graphic Design" (AU of Cairo Press, 2020)
Arab graphic design emerged in the early twentieth century out of a need to influence, and give expression to, the far-reaching economic, social, and political changes that were taking place in the Arab world at the time. But graphic design as a formally recognized genre of visua ... Show More
43m 41s