Jul 29
Lisa Blaydes and Samuel Helfont eds., "Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities" (Stanford UP, 2026)
The opening of Iraq's Ba'th Party archives revolutionized the study of Iraqi politics and history, offering scholars unprecedented access to the inner workings of one of the world's most impenetrable autocracies. Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Oppo ... Show More
41m 40s
Jul 25
Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States" (Columbia UP, 2026)
The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of th ... Show More
45m 42s
Jul 23
Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit" (Hurst, 2026)
Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region ... Show More
50m 26s
Mar 2023
Seema Golestaneh, "Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran" (Duke UP, 2022)
In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and knowledge acquisition amongst Sufi communities in contemporary Iran. T ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 2024
Francesco Piraino, "Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Francesco Piraino’s Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024) is a vital contribution to the growing field of Sufism in the Global North which often encompasses studies of North America and western Europe. This monograph study, the ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 2024
Francesco Piraino, "Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Francesco Piraino’s Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024) is a vital contribution to the growing field of Sufism in the Global North which often encompasses studies of North America and western Europe. This monograph study, the ... Show More
1h 3m
Jul 2021
Ismail Fajrie Alatas, "What Is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia" (Princeton UP, 2021)
What Is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia (Princeton UP, 2021) by Ismail Fajrie Alatas draws on groundbreaking anthropological insights to provide a new understanding of Islamic religious authority, showing how religious leaders unite diverse aspe ... Show More
1h 44m
Aug 2023
Jamila Rodrigues, "Sufi Women, Embodiment and the 'Self': Gender in Islamic Ritual" (Routledge, 2023)
Jamila Rodrigues's new book Sufi Women, Embodiment and the “Self”: Gender in Islamic Ritual (Routledge 2023) uses her dance and performance studies background to study women’s hadra or zikr experiences of a Naqshbandi Sufi community in Cape Town, South Africa. This ritual include ... Show More
55m 50s
Jul 2024
Philosophical Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: Two Poems of Shaykh Dan Tafa
Oludamini Ogunnaike is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He teaches courses on African and African Diasporic Religions as well as Islam, Islamic Philosophy, Spirituality, and Art. He holds a PhD in African Studies and the Study of Religion ... Show More
23m 20s
Aug 2023
Jamila Rodrigues, "Sufi Women, Embodiment and the 'Self': Gender in Islamic Ritual" (Routledge, 2023)
Jamila Rodrigues's new book Sufi Women, Embodiment and the “Self”: Gender in Islamic Ritual (Routledge 2023) uses her dance and performance studies background to study women’s hadra or zikr experiences of a Naqshbandi Sufi community in Cape Town, South Africa. This ritual include ... Show More
55m 50s
Oct 2024
Emrah Yildiz, "Zainab's Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders" (U California Press, 2024)
Emrah Yildiz's new book Zainab’s Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders (University of California Press, 2024) is a masterful ethnographic study that maps the religious, political, and economic traffics from Tehran to just outside Damascus to the shrine of Sayy ... Show More
1h 10m
In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and knowledge acquisition amongst Sufi communities in contemporary Iran. The book focuses on the central conceptual paradigm of “ma‘rifat”, which Golestan ... Show More
