On this week's episode of the podcast, Sarah El Kazaz of SOAS, University of London, joins Marc Lynch to discuss her new book, Politics in the Crevices: Urban Design and the Making of Property Markets in Cairo and Istanbul. In this transnational ethnography of neighborhoods undergoing contested rapid transformations, Sarah El Kazaz reveals how the battle for ... Show More
Mar 24
Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands (S. 15, Ep. 9)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Fırat Bozçalı of University of Toronto joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands. Taking readers from border villages, mountain passes, and road checkpoints to courtrooms ... Show More
42m 55s
Mar 17
Syria: A Modern History (S. 15, Ep. 8)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Daniel Neep of the Arab Center Washington DC joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, Syria: A Modern History. Modern Syria has seen violence, repression, and autocracy, suffering through tragedy after tragedy over the past century. In the ... Show More
39m 57s
Mar 10
West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East (S. 15, Ep. 7)
On this week's episode of the podcast, Mohammed Soliman of the Middle East Institute joins Marc Lynch to discuss his new book, West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East. In the book, Soliman argues that it is time for the United States to move decisively away fr ... Show More
40m 20s
Aug 2023
BASSAM HADDAD | Syria's Business Model | Conversations
<p>What is Syria’s business model? How will the current political constriction, brain and human drain, and regional geo-politics affect the country moving forward? In this fascinating conversation with Bassam Haddad, we consider money as a mentality, Syria’s political economy, an ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 2023
FADI BARDAWIL | Arab Marxism, the New Left & Political Realities | Conversations
<p>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 Emancipati ... Show More
1h 6m
Jun 2020
Arab Urbanism Magazine Launch
Urbanisation is one of the central forces shaping social life in the Arab region. As cities grow, disappear, and organise new realities, critical debate on urban policies, histories and everyday life becomes crucial.
Arab Urbanism is a new online platform that gives space for urb ... Show More
1h 22m
Dec 2022
Yahia Shawkat, "Egypt's Housing Crisis: The Shaping of Urban Space" (American U in Cairo Press, 2020)
Along with football and religion, housing is a fundamental cornerstone of Egyptian life: it can make or break marriage proposals, invigorate or slow down the economy, and popularize or embarrass a ruler. Housing is political. Almost every Egyptian ruler over the last eighty years ... Show More
28m 42s
Sep 2023
Cruel Summer: Housing, Inequality, & Injustice
<p>Welcome to Season 7 of Pushback Talks! It's been an eventful summer, as nations worldwide grappled with the housing and climate crises, and people took to the streets to protest wealth inequality and the rapidly rising cost of living. In this highly anticipated season pre ... Show More
43m 27s
Jan 2023
Cities for the Many Not the Few
<p>For Doreen Massey, every place poses a challenge, “the challenge of negotiating a here-and-now” – or what she called <em>throwntogetherness</em>. In this episode, we hear about different struggles to make cities more liveable – and more <em>just</em> – for the many, not the fe ... Show More
32m 1s
Sep 2019
Elizabeth S. Kassab, "Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates" (Columbia UP, 2019)
The "Arab Spring" shook the world in 2011, revealing profound dissatisfaction throughout the Middle East and North Africa, as people throughout the region took to the streets demanding dramatic political change. The uprisings have been analyzed by scholars, journalists, and other ... Show More
59m 23s
Feb 2024
Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell, "Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region" (Pluto Press, 2023)
Just in Time - the urgent need for a just transition in the Arab region. The newly published book Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate justice in the Arab Region (Pluto Press, 2023) edited by Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell questions the development of sustainabl ... Show More
50m 22s