War forced millions of Syrians from their homes. It also forced them to rethink the meaning of home itself.
In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions.
The Home I Worked to Mak ... Show More
Feb 21
Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)
I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) is a young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visit Mai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been ... Show More
32m 13s
Feb 20
Eray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan" (U Texas Press, 2025)
Extractivism—exploiting the earth for resources—has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world where ecological and humanitarian sensibilities are unprecedentedly widespread? Eray Çaylı argues it does so by mobilizing these se ... Show More
1h 3m
Feb 19
David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)
In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. T ... Show More
39m 44s
Dec 2024
Wendy Pearlman, "The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora" (Liveright, 2024)
War forced millions of Syrians from their homes. It also forced them to rethink the meaning of home itself.
In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, ... Show More
1h 4m
Jun 2025
How life is changing in Syria
For well over a decade, civil war blighted the lives of Syrians, as rebel forces battled against former President Bashar al-Assad and his brutal regime. More than 600,000 people were killed and 12 million others were forced from their homes during this time. In December last year ... Show More
23m 6s
Jul 2025
Anahid Matossian, "Syrian-Armenian Women Migrants in Armenia: Gender, Identity and Painful Belonging" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
After the outbreak of the 2011 Syrian War, a number Syrian-Armenians who had lived in the territory for generations, fled to the Republic of Armenia. This book traces the experiences of Syrian-Armenian women as they navigated their changing and gendered identities from their adop ... Show More
1h 11m
Dec 2024
Will Syrians return home?
Syrian refugees are celebrating the end of the Assad regime. But for Omar Alshogre and millions like him, going back to Syria is a complicated decision.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristi ... Show More
27m 26s