Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Feb 3
Lisa Min et al. eds., "Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State" (punctum books, 2024)
When it comes to the political, acts of redaction, erasure, and blacking out sit in awkward tension with the myth of transparent governance, borderless access, and frictionless communication. But should there be more than this brute juxtaposition of truth and secrecy? Redacted: W ... Show More
1h 25m
Feb 2
Allison Caine, "Restless Ecologies: Climate Change and Socioecological Futures in the Peruvian Highlands" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
In the high Andean grasslands 4,500 meters above sea level, Quechua alpaca herders live on the edges of glaciers that have retreated more rapidly in the past fifty years than at any point in the previous six millennia. Women are the primary herders, and their specialized knowledg ... Show More
49m 37s
Oct 2022
Salim Tamari et al., "Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine" (U California Press, 2022)
Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine (U California Press, 2022) is a critical exploration of Jerusalemite chronicler Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1904–1972) and his seven photography albums entitled The Illustrated History of Palestine. Jawhariyyeh’s nine hun ... Show More
1h 15m
Nov 2021
FWD: "On Photography in Lebanon - Kaph Books"
In this afikra FWD, Tanya Sukkari talked about "On Photography in Lebanon" from Kaph Books. On Photography in Lebanon is a book in which forty contributors share their perspectives on photography in Lebanon, evoking its equally numerous forms of existence. Examining techniques, p ... Show More
9m 51s
Dec 2023
Nur Sobers-Khan et al., "Beyond Colonial Rupture: Print Culture and the Emergence of Muslim Modernity in Nineteenth-Century South Asia" (2023)
Scholarly discussions on Islam in print have focused predominantly on the role of Urdu in the development of North Indian Muslim publics (Dubrow, 2018; Robb, 2020), ʿulama and Islamic jurisprudence (Tareen, 2020) and relations between Islam and colonial modernity (Robinson, 2008; ... Show More
38m 21s
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
Nov 2021
FWD: “Gazbia Sirry- When Modern Arab Form Meets Politics” [Community Presentation]
In this afikra FWD, Laila Karaman talked about "Gazbia Sirry- When Modern Arab Form Meets Politics" by Fatenn Mostafa-Kanafani. Laila discusses the themes in Sirry's artwork which are polygamy, gender preference/roles, gender equality, occupation/civil rights, and new political e ... Show More
11m 25s
May 2023
Unraveling the Etymology of Arabic Words & Expressions With Fadi Boukaram aka @cedrusk
<p>Fadi Bou Karam talks about the history of Levantine etymologies and their possible origins. He discusses the influence of the Ottomans on the way certain words are pronounced, notably in Lebanese Arabic. The words include fruits and vegetables, such as artichoke, orange, loqua ... Show More
59m 54s
Apr 2022
CHRISTINA RIGGS | Ancient Egyptian History | Conversations
<p>Christina Riggs talked about ancient Egypt and how the fields of archaeology, art history, and Egyptology developed in tandem with colonial and imperial expansion.</p><p>Christina is historian of photography and archaeology, with a particular interest in North Africa and the M ... Show More
30m 17s
In Photography and Making Bedouin Histories in the Naqab, 1906-2013:: An Anthropological Approach (Routledge, 2023), Emilie Le Febvre takes us to the Naqab Desert where Bedouin use photographs to make, and respond to, their own histories. She argues Bedouin presentations of the past are selective, but increasingly reliant on archival documents such as photog ... Show More
