Jan 15
Episode 121: The Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate, from 661-750, became the largest empire the world had ever known, even as it suffered through two civil wars and significant internal divisions. This episode covers its overall military, political, and cultural history. Episode 121 Quiz: https://literaturea ... Show More
2h 15m
Dec 15
Episode 120: The Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun caliphate, from 632-661, completely changed the history of the world. Learn the story of the greatest imperial expansion of the first millennium, together with the complex political and theological history behind it. Episode 120 Quiz: https://literatureandhistory.com ... Show More
2h 24m
Jun 2024
14. History of Arabic Poetry with Mosab Abu Toha (video)
On this video recorded episode of Kalam, Edgar sits with the Gazan poet and very much a friend of the podcast, Mosab Abu Toha, for a discussion about, among other things, the history of Arabic poetry. Why are poets so venerated in the Arab world, and what did poetry sound like be ... Show More
28m 52s
May 2024
Huda Fakhreddine on Hiba Abu Nada ("Pull Yourself Together")
What can a poem do in the face of calamity? This was an extraordinary conversation. Huda Fakhreddine joins the podcast to discuss "Pull Yourself Together," a poem that Huda has translated into English and that was written by the Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator Hiba Abu N ... Show More
1h 30m
May 2024
Constantine P. Cavafy — Poems as Teachers | Ep 3
We ask questions to find out the facts, but what if you can’t trust the answers, the questions, or the person who's asking the questions? In Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians,” translated by Evan Jones, leaders exercise a sinister kind of violence — they’ve take ... Show More
17m 23s
May 2024
Mosab Abu Toha — Poems as Teachers | Ep 4
In Mosab Abu Toha’s “Ibrahim Abu Lughod and brother in Yaffa,” two barefoot siblings on a beach sketch out a map of their former home in the sand and argue about what went where. Their longing for return to a place of hospitality, family, memory, friends, and even strangers is al ... Show More
16m 29s
May 2019
Episode 6: The .01 Percent
In this episode, Israeli poet Tahel Frosh talks to us about her debut poetry collection Betsa (Avarice, 2014), financial crisis, and the value of culture. We revisit the summer of 2011, when a series of protests spread across Israel sparked by rising housing costs, the increased ... Show More
27m 46s
Jun 2019
Episode 8: Death Leaves Signs
This episode, the final one of this season, features the work of Palestinian poet Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, author-in-residence at Refugee Hosts. Qasmiyeh is currently a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, where he is writing about conceptualisations of time and containment in ... Show More
24m 24s
Jun 2019
Episode 7: Living Absences
In this conversation with Trinidadian Scottish poet Vahni Capildeo, author of Venus as a Bear (2018), we explore the layered, polyphonous histories of the places we pass through and inhabit. Capildeo, who studied at Oxford, opens their collection with a series of ekphrastic poems ... Show More
32m 56s
