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  • Episode 24: Iran in Context Part I--Gender and Revolution

    Episode 24: Iran in Context Part I--Gender and Revolution

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast is an audio recording from the first event in our Iran in Context series. This series is co-produced by MERIP, BRISMES, the British Society for Middle East Studies, and SeSaMO, the Italian Society for Middle East Studies. Each event features conversations with scholars about the deeper context behind the political and military convulsions in Iran over the last year. 


    For the first installment, we took up the topic of gender and revolution in conversation with Manijeh Moradian, assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and author of the book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022), and Nazanin Shahrokni, associate professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University and author of the book, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press, 2020).


    This conversation was recorded on June 18, 2026.


    Further Reading: 


    Manijeh Moradian, This Flame Within Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022)


    Manijeh Moradian, "Feminist Uprising in Iran and the Politics of Solidarity," Meridians (April 2026) 


    Manijeh Moradian "Decolonial Diasporas: Iranian Feminist Solidarity in Global Context" Iranian Studies. (October 2025) 


    Manijeh Moradian, "Embodying Revolution: Situating Iran within Transnational Feminist Solidarities," Radical History Review (January 2024) 


    Feminists for Jina 


    Nazanin Shahrokni, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press 2020)


    Nazanin Shahrokni, “Who Speaks for Iran?–and From Where? Geopolitics, Representation and Solidarity,” SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal, March 2, 2026


    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 23: Ayça Alemdaroğlu

    Episode 23: Ayça Alemdaroğlu

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with Ayça Alemdaroğlu about her article, “The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP,” in our Spring 2026 issue, “Campus Politics–Palestine and the New University Order.” MERIP executive director James Ryan spoke with Alemdaroğlu about the efforts of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party to co-opt university administrations and contain campus dissent over the last 25 years. While attempting to coerce and repress the strongest and most outspoken voices on prestigious campuses like Boğaziçi or Middle East Technical University the state has also invested heavily in constructing and opening new universities, often in more provincial settings, in order to build its own hegemonic institutions. As Alemdaroğlu explains in her piece, "Although access to institutions of higher education has expanded greatly, academic freedom has been steadily eroded through the combined force of ordinary administrative authority and extraordinary instruments such as emergency decrees, which together reoriented universities toward political compliance." The conversation also covered the abrupt closure and swift re-opening of Istanbul Bilgi University in May, one of Turkey’s leading private universities and an avant-garde institution for liberal and progressive academics. 


    This conversation was recorded on June 8, 2026


    Further reading: 


    Ayça Alemdaroğlu, “The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP”, Middle East Report, Issue 318, Spring 2026


    Ayça Alemdaroğlu and Elif BabĂŒl, “Boğaziçi Resists Authoritarian Control of the Academy in Turkey” Middle East Report Online, February 23, 2021 


    Ayça Alemdaroğlu “The University in the Making of Authoritarian Turkey” European Journal of Turkish Studies Issue 34, 2022 


    Ayça Alemdaroğlu, “Tek İmza Cumhuriyetinde Üniversite: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversite” (“The University in the Single-Signature Republic: Istanbul Bilgi University”), Birikim Dergisi May 26, 2026


    “Yellow Letters” (Sarı Zarflar) [Film] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32888226/ 


    MESA Committee on Academic Freedom, Letters on Turkey 


    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • Episode 22: Aslı BĂąli and Darryl Li

    Episode 22: Aslı Bâli and Darryl Li

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today's episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with two contributors to the spring issue of Middle East Report, “Campus Politics—Palestine and the New University Order.” Since the beginning of world-wide campus protests in the wake of October 7, 2023, there has been a tremendous upswell of organizing and support for Palestinian liberation and activism against US militarism. In response, a wave of repression against students, staff and faculty on campus began in 2023 and accelerated after Donald Trump took office. Our latest issue takes stock of these dynamics and the stakes of political action on campus in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. 


    To discuss campus politics in our present moment, MERIP’s executive director, James Ryan, was joined by Aslı BĂąli and Darryl Li. Aslı BĂąli is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the former president of the Middle East Studies Association. Her article in this issue, “Fighting the Campus Crackdown–Why the Middle East Studies Association Took the Trump Administration to Court,” is a reflection on MESA’s lawsuit, with the American Association of University Professors and the Knight First Amendment Institute, against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump Administration over the free speech rights of noncitizens, like RĂŒmeysa ÖztĂŒrk and others, who spoke up about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Darryl Li is an associate professor of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, and a contributor, along with Andrew Ross, Lara Deeb, Meera Shah and Lisa Hajjar to “The University is a Site of Struggle—A Roundtable with Faculty Organizers on Repression and Resistance on US Campuses.”


    Further Reading: 


    Aslı BĂąli, “Fighting the Campus Crackdown—Why the Middle East Studies Association Took the Trump Administration to Court” Middle East Report, no. 318 (Spring 2026). 


    Lisa Hajjar, Lara Deeb, Darryl Li, Andrew Ross and Meera Shah, “‘The University is a Site of Struggle—A Roundtable with Faculty Organizers on Repression and Resistance on US Campuses”  Middle East Report, no. 318 (Spring 2026).


    The MESA Academic Freedom Initiative 


    MESA and AAUP, “Discriminating Against Dissent: The Weaponization of Civil Rights Law to Repress Campus Speech on Palestine,” November 5, 2025.


    Palestine Legal 2025 Report 


    The Knight First Amendment Institute 


    PEN America, “Expanding the Web of Control–America’s Censored Campuses 2025,” January 15, 2025. 


    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 21: Susann Kassem, Lara Deeb and Habib Battah

    Episode 21: Susann Kassem, Lara Deeb and Habib Battah

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today on the podcast three MERIP contributors discuss Lebanon’s tenuous, one-sided ceasefire with Israel. Even as officials in the Lebanese government have entered into negotiations with Israel, an unprecedented diplomatic move with questionable legal status under Lebanese law, Israel has violated the ceasefire numerous times and has continued its efforts to destroy villages south of its unilaterally declared “yellow line” in preparation for expanded occupation and settlement. Some displaced Lebanese from the south have temporarily returned to assess the damage to their homes and villages, and many Shi’a across Lebanon remain under threat. 


    Joining MERIP’s executive director James Ryan to discuss this bleak reality and internal Lebanese politics are Susann Kassem, an anthropologist and Marie SkƂodowska Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow between Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Geneva Graduate Institute and author of “‘Our Compass is Broken’—Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon,” published by MERIP on April 2; Lara Deeb, a professor of anthropology and Middle Eastern and North African studies at Scripps College and co-author of MERIP’s “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Palestine and Resistance to Israeli Violence;” and Habib Battah, an independent journalist who teaches global studies at St. Lawrence University in New York and whose most recent article for MERIP was “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy.” 


    This podcast was recorded on April 22, 2026. 


    Further reading: 


    Habib Battah, “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy” Middle East Report Online, April 10, 2024

    Lara Deeb, Maya Mikdashi, Tsolin Nalbantian, Nadya Sbaiti, “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Palestine and Resistance to Israeli Violence” Middle East Report, Issue 313 Winter 2024

    Susann Kassem, “‘Our Compass is Broken’--Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon” Middle East Report Online April 2, 2026

    Malek Abisaab and Michelle Hartman, What the War Left Behind: Women’s Stories of Resistance and Struggle in Lebanon Syracuse University Press, 2024 

    Munira Khayyat, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon University of California Press, 2022

    Munira Khayyat, Another Season of War in Lebanon Society for Cultural Anthropology Editor’s Forum, Hotspots April 11, 2025

    Amani Rammal, “Crossing the ‘Security Belt:’ A History of the Occupied Lebanese Border Strip” The Public Source, April 16, 2026 

    “The War in Lebanon is Existential with Hala Jaber” Makdisi Street Podcast, March 14, 2026 

    Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon, Princeton University Press, 2006 

    Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi’ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities Columbia University Press, 2008 

    Humans of Dahieh (Instagram) 

    Glenn Diesen–Greater Eurasia Podcast 

    Hadley Suter and Tania El Khoury, “Tania El Khoury’s Soothing ‘Revenge Art’” Hyperallergic, April 17, 2026 

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 20: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part III

    Episode 20: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part III

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today’s episode is the third installment of our MERIP Roundtable discussing the war on Iran, instigated by the US and Israeli on February 28, 2026, and its regional reverberations. This episode focuses on Israel’s expanded war on Lebanon. Following the assassination of Ali Khamanei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hizballah fired six missiles into Israel, its first offensive move since a ceasefire was signed in the fall of 2024. Israel, meanwhile, has violated the ceasefire on a near daily basis over the past year and a half through missile and drone strikes. In the past weeks, Israel has issued mass evacuation warnings across the entire area south of the Litani river, in Dahiyeh south of Beirut and in the Bekaa valley. Invasions, including a commando raid through Syria into the Bekaa followed, as have the near daily barrage of missile and drone attacks. In a matter of a couple of weeks, over one million people have been displaced—representing a quarter of Lebanon’s population. 


    The renewed assault has raised the stakes of long running issues in Lebanon around national sovereignty and self-defense, and wider questions about how both Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression in the region can be constituted in the face of its overwhelming military and technological advantages. To discuss these issues, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan was joined by Rima Majed, an associate professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, whose work has focused on sectarianism, social movements and conflict in Lebanon. Rima Majed is a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and also the author of a short essay on the war on Lebanon that appeared as part of our collection “War Across Boundaries–Perspectives on Iran and a Region Under Siege,” published on March 19, 2026. Also joining the podcast is Ali Musleh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California-Davis, whose research focuses on the effects of automated warscapes on everyday life and resistance in Palestine.


    This conversation was recorded on March 23rd, 2026. 


    Further Reading:


    Laleh Khalili (interview) Democracy Now “The End of the Petrodollar? How Iran War Is Reshaping the Global Economy: Author Laleh Khalili” March 19, 2026


    Joseph Daher, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God (Pluto Press, 2016)


    Abdaljawad Omar, “Gaza Faces the World” Turbulence Podcast Episode 10, January 20, 2026


    Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War On Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (Macmillan, 2020)


    The Material Politics of Normalization Middle East Report Summer/Fall 2025, Issue 315-316


    Munira Khayyat, “Dispatch from South Lebanon–Life as Resistance at the End of the World” Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313


    Lara Deeb, Maya Mikdashi, Tsolin Nalbantian and Nadya Sbaiti, “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Politics and Resistance to Israeli Violence” Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 19: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part II

    Episode 19: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part II

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On today’s episode of the MERIP Roundtable our discussion focused on people’s experiences of the war on Iran and throughout the region two and a half weeks in. Much of the discussion of this war in the western media has centered on the strategic calculus of the United States and Israel in deciding to go to war, how long it may endure and what that means for Americans. Despite the fact that Iranians are withstanding a bombardment that is comparable in scale to Israel’s initial assault on Gaza in October 2023, the immense damage being done to the country is less prominent in the discourse. According to official Iranian sources, there have been over 1,400 civilian casualties, 18,000 injuries and 61,000 civilian structures damaged. According to the UN, approximately 3.2 million people have been displaced. Given these facts, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan asked our roundtable how Iranians are dealing with the US and Israeli siege. How are they getting information in and out, and how should those of us outside of Iran contextualize what we’re hearing and seeing? Also, since he was joined by fellow historians, they discussed how we can begin to see this war’s many dimensions in a longer historical trajectory. 


    This edition of the MERIP Roundtable features Naghmeh Sohrabi, a frequent MERIP contributor, the Charles Corky Goodman Professor of Middle East History at Brandeis University and the director of research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies; Kaveh Ehsani, associate professor of international studies at DePaul University and a member of MERIP’s Board of Directors and Toby Craig Jones, associate professor of history at Rutgers University and a member of MERIP’s editorial committee. 


    This discussion was recorded on March 18, 2026


    Further Reading:


    Nashraasoo (@nashraasoo on Instagram)


    Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New York, Simon and Schuster)


    Kaveh Ehsani, “Voices from the Middle East: US Sanctions on Iran Devastate the Health Sector” Middle East Report Online March 31, 2020 


    Costs of War Project (Brown University)


    Joy Gordon ed., Economic Sanctions from Havana to Baghdad (Cambridge, 2025)


    Joy Gordon, “The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions” Middle East Report Spring 2020 


    Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón, Mark Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis” The Lancet Global Health, 13, e1358-e1366


    Noura Erakat, Luigi Daniele, Shahd Hammouri, Ata Hindi, Maryam Jamshidi and Darryl Li, “Roundtable on the War on Iran and International Law” Jadaliyya, March 13, 2026


    Firoozeh Kashani Sabet, “Iranicide: the Genealogy of Hate” The Tempered View, March 14, 2026

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 18: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part I

    Episode 18: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part I

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On today’s episode we have an installment of our MERIP Roundtable series, where members of our editorial committee, recent contributors and close comrades discuss current events. In this episode, we centered our discussion on the social dynamics and impacts of the current war on Iran and consider how the regional political order may be shifting as a result. 


    On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel began a massive air war against Iran, which has now impacted up to 12 countries in the region. Many of Iran’s political leaders, including the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been killed and replaced, oil infrastructure in Iran and across the Gulf has been severely damaged or production halted and retaliatory Iranian missile and drone strikes have hit both military and civilian targets in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates and Oman. The closing and apparent mining of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices over $100 a barrel, pushing the global economy to the brink of a recession. All of this is happening under the direction of a US administration whose war aims appear opaque and in cooperation with an Israeli government bent on sowing regional chaos, inflicting misery on ordinary Iranians, accelerating devastating attacks on Lebanon, closing Gaza to all aid and severely restricting movement within the West Bank.


    Joining Executive Director James Ryan for the roundtable are Ida Nikou, a sociologist and author of a recent MERIP article “Governing Crisis–Sanctions, Austerity and Social Unrest in Iran”; Arang Keshavarzian, professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at NYU, a long time MERIP contributor and editor and author of Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East, published by Stanford University Press in 2024; and Sean Yom, a member of our editorial committee, associate professor of political science at Temple University and author of Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible, published in 2025 by Oxford University Press. 


    This episode was recorded on March 11, 2026.


    Further reading: 

    Ida Nikou and Manijeh Moradian eds., “Iran in Crisis: Seven Essays on the Obstacles to Freedom,” Jadaliyya, February 24, 2026. 


    Ida Nikou, “Governing Crisis–Sanctions, Austerity and Social Unrest in Iran,” MERIP, January 29, 2026.


    Adam Hanieh, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power and the Making of the World Market, (Verso Books, 2024). 


    Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, “The Iran War is Jeopardizing the Entire Global Economy” Foreign Policy, March 4, 2026. 


    Andrew J. Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (Penguin, 2017). 


    Marc Lynch, America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region (Hurst Publishers, 2025). 


    Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “The Dry and the Wet Burn Together,” London Review of Books, March 3, 2026. 


    Ervand Abrahamian, “Iran Under Fire,” New Left Review 157, January/February 2026. 


    Naghmeh Sohrabi, “These are the True Things” (Substack)


    Reza Akbari, “The Guarded Domains” (Substack) 


    Toby Craig Jones, “Iran and America’s Long War in the Middle East,” New Global Politics, March 4, 2026. 


    Arang Keshavarzian, “Iran Transformed,” New York Review of Books, March 8, 2026. 


    Mira Al Hussein, “The Iran War Has Exposed the Gulf’s Bet on US Protections,” Hidden Cities, March 9, 2026.

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 17: Niema Alhessen

    Episode 17: Niema Alhessen

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with Niema Alhessen, a Sudanese researcher based in Cairo who is focused on urban conflict and displacement. She is the author of “Burri Under Siege—How War Remade Everyday Life in a Sudanese Neighborhood” in our Winter 2025 issue of Middle East Report, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” Burri, a neighborhood in central Khartoum that houses key political and military institutions, was under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from the beginning of its war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April 2023 until the SAF regained control of the city in March 2025. Alhessen spoke with residents of Burri about living in their neighborhood during the siege, how they sustained life through makeshift institutions and mutual aid and negotiated with both the RSF and SAF in order to procure aid. Alhessen’s article also delves into the deeper colonial history of Khartoum’s urban fabric, detailing how the militarization of Khartoum’s streets has its roots in the colonization of Sudan under the Anglo-Egyptian condominium in the late nineteenth century.


    For this episode, MERIP’s Executive Director James Ryan was joined by co-host Deen Sharp, an LSE Fellow in Human Geography in the department of geography and environment at the London School of Economics, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and an editor on the issue “Reconstruction and Ruin.” 


    This interview was recorded on March 4, 2026


    Niema Alhessen, “Burri Under Siege–How War Remade Everyday Life in a Sudanese Neighborhood” Middle East Report 317 (Winter 2025). https://www.merip.org/2026/02/burri-under-siege-how-war-remade-everyday-life-in-a-sudanese-neighborhood/ 


    Further reading:


    Ali Al-Arash, “Bread, Books, and Bombs: Burri’s Spirit of Resistance, Knowledge, and Solidarity,” ATAR Network 28 (May 19, 2025). https://atarnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ATAR-English-Issue-28-Bread-books-and-bombs-Burri-s-spirit-of-resistance-knowledge-and-solidarity.pdf


    Marina D’Errico, “The Urban Fabric Between Tradition and Modernity (1885–1956): Omdurman, Khartoum, and the British Master Plan of 1910” in Vezzadini, Seri-Hersch, Revilla, Poussier & Abdul Jalil (Eds.), Ordinary Sudan, 1504–2019: From Social History to Politics from Below (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110719611-011 


    Khartoum podcast by Studio Urban.


    Khalid Mustafa Medani, “The Struggle for Sudan” Middle East Report 310 (Spring 2024). https://www.merip.org/the-struggle-for-sudan/

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 16: Iman Ali

    Episode 16: Iman Ali

    · The MERIP Podcast

    In today’s episode Iman Ali talks about her recently published article, “Repair and Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding the Dahiyeh Once More,” which appeared in our Winter 2025 issue, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” Iman Ali,  a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Cornell University, has been conducting fieldwork in Lebanon to investigate the impacts of Israel’s war in the fall of 2024 and the ongoing,almost daily, Israeli drone and missile attacks since the November 2024  ceasefire agreement. Her article closely examines the immense material and political challenges faced by Lebanon’s Shi’i community in the last year and a half. She also compares the current struggles to rebuild Beirut’s southern district of Dahiyeh with the vastly different political, funding and leadership landscape following the 2006 war between Hizballah and Israel. After that 2006 campaign, Hizballah was successful in rebuilding the neighborhoods of the Dahiyeh with the aid of funding from several regional and global partners, and under the leadership of Hizballah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. Today, the challenge of rebuilding could not be more different – the financing is not forthcoming, Hizballah’s leadership is decimated and the spectre of continued or renewed Israeli aggression is pervasive. 


    For this conversation, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan was joined by Najib Hourani, a member of the editorial team for “Reconstruction and Ruin,” as cohost. Hourani is an associate professor of anthropology and global urban studies at Michigan State University and now an emeritus member of MERIP’s editorial committee. We spoke with Iman Ali  about her piece, the longer history of the Dahiyeh and the intense burden that resistance to Israeli aggression has placed on Lebanon’s Shi’i communities. 


    This episode was recorded on February 25, 2026.


    Support MERIP by making a donation: www.merip.org/donate 


    Read Iman Ali’s piece here: 


    Iman Ali, “Repair and Ongoing Ruination – Rebuilding the Dahiyeh Once More” Middle East Report 317, Reconstruction and Ruin Winter 2025 https://www.merip.org/2026/02/repair-amid-ongoing-ruination-rebuilding-dahiyeh-once-more/ 


    Further Reading:


    Hiba Bou Akar, “Urban Interventions for the Wars Yet to Come”  https://www.merip.org/2019/07/urban-interventions-for-the-wars-yet-to-come/ 


    Tamara Chalabi, The Shi ‘is of Jabal ‘Amil and the New Lebanon: Community and Nation-State, 1918–1943  Springer, 2006 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781403982940 


    Lara Deeb, An enchanted modern: Gender and public piety in Shi'i Lebanon Princeton University Press, 2006 https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691124216/an-enchanted-modern?srsltid=AfmBOoqcTpqKMA4-KFqziKFdTLlEygTlQrSB8axSVs0hrFN0MaUORMZi 


    Mona Fawaz "Hezbollah as urban planner? Questions to and from planning theory" Planning Theory 8.4 (2009): 323-334 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26165922 


    Mona Harb and Lara Deeb. "Culture as history and landscape: Hizballah’s efforts to shape an Islamic milieu in Lebanon" Arab Studies Journal 19.1 (2011): 12-45 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23265810 


    Najib B. Hourani "People or profit? Two post-conflict reconstructions in Beirut" Human Organization 74.2 (2015): 174-184 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.17730/0018-7259-74.2.174 


    Munira Khayyat "Dispatch from South Lebanon—Life as Resistance at the End of the World." Middle East Report 313 (Winter 2024) https://www.merip.org/2025/01/dispatch-from-south-lebanon/ 


    Salim Nasr, “The Roots of the Shi’i Movement” June 24, 1985 https://www.merip.org/1985/06/roots-of-the-shii-movement/


    Salim Nasr, “Backdrop to Civil War: The Crisis of Lebanese Capitalism” Middle East Report No. 73 Winter 1978 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3012262

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 15: In the Archive with Brahim El Guabli

    Episode 15: In the Archive with Brahim El Guabli

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On this episode of our In the Archive series, MERIP’s Executive Director, James Ryan, speaks with Brahim El Guabli about his essay, “The Sub-Saharan Turn in Moroccan Literature,” which appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Middle East Report, “Maghreb from the Margins.” El Guabli speaks about how migration from sub-Saharan Africa reshaped Moroccan politics and identity over the course of the last 30 years and how he read those changes through recent Moroccan novels. We discussed how the piece has been received and how its ideas contributed to El Guabli’s development of the concept  “saharanism”—the subject of his newly published book, Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences. 


    You can check out our earlier In the Archive segment, with Beshara Doumani here: https://www.merip.org/2025/11/the-merip-podcast-episode-11-in-the-archive-with-beshara-doumani/ 


    MERIP is accepting pitches for our summer issue on visual art and cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa until February 23rd for more information click here: https://www.merip.org/2026/02/call-for-pitches-visual-art-cultural-production-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/  

     

    Brahim El Guabli is an associate professor of comparative thought and literature at Johns Hopkins University. 


    Further Reading: 


    Abdel Rahman Munif, Cities of Salt ( New York: Vintage, 1989) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/118591/cities-of-salt-by-abdelrahman-munif/ 


    Brahim El Guabli, “The Sub-Saharan Turn in Moroccan Literature” Middle East Report Issue 298 Spring 2021 https://www.merip.org/2021/04/the-sub-saharan-african-turn-in-moroccan-literature-2/


    Brahim El Guabli, Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2025) https://www.ucpress.edu/books/desert-imaginations/paper 


    Brahim El Guabli, “Forgettable Black and Amazigh Bodies: BoujemĂąa Hebaz and the Moroccan Racial Politics of Amnesia” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 44(2) 2024: 303-316 https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-11233072 


    Brahim El Guabli, “The Idea of Tamazgha: Current Articulations and Scholarly Potential” Tamazgha Studies Journal Vol 1. Issue 1. Fall 2023, 7-22 https://www.tamazghastudiesjournal.org/articles-fall2023-issue-01-article02  


    Ghislaine Lydon On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth Century Western Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/on-transsaharan-trails/B6AB08C0940DBAF3370045EA702E84D1 


    Shamil Jeppie, Writing Timbuktu: The Book in West African History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2026) https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691273853/writing-timbuktu?srsltid=AfmBOorqYdHD-ksEASj0rR-5TBFwqVQPM-Rj-sV-o5pO2dHeMGaTdRaD

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 14: The MERIP Roundtable, On Iran's Protests

    Episode 14: The MERIP Roundtable, On Iran's Protests

    · The MERIP Podcast

    In this installment of the MERIP Roundtable podcast, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan is joined by a panel of MERIP comrades to discuss the latest wave of protests in Iran. The protests began on December 28, 2025, as merchants and bazaar workers reacted negatively to new budgetary measures announced by President Masoud Pezeshkian. The protests snowballed in the first week of January, reaching a peak on and shortly after January 8, after which the government instituted an internet blackout. The protests have been intense, widespread and increasingly cross-sectoral. They’ve also been met with harsh repression by the IRGC and its affiliates, with reports of clashes and summary executions resulting in thousands of casualties. The panel discussed the protests, how they compare and contrast with prior waves, and how regional and global politics are influencing both the regime and its opposition. Participants in the panel are Kaveh Ehsani, a member of MERIP’s board of directors and a professor of international studies at DePaul University; Maziyar Ghiabi, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and an associate professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter; and Asma Abdi, an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, also at Exeter’s Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies. 


    This conversation was recorded on January 21, 2026.


    Further Reading: 


    Setareh Shohadaei, Nazanin Shahrokni, Peyman Jafari, Kaveh Ehsani, Arash Davari and Maziyar Behrooz, “Echoes of a Short War: Critical Reflections on Israel’s Attack on Iran” Jadaliyya roundtable, September 23rd, 2025 https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46907


    Arang Keshavarzian, “An Explosion Long in the Making” Equator January 17, 2026 https://www.equator.org/articles/iran-explosion-long-in-the-making 


    Naghmeh Sohrabi, “We Can’t Live Like This Anymore” Equator January 18, 2026 https://www.equator.org/articles/messages-from-iran 


    Yassamine Mather, “Seeds of Revolt: Iran’s Economic Collapse and Inflation” Counterpunch January 16, 2026 https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/16/economic-collapse-and-inflation/ 


    Gal Beckerman, “The Silence of the Left on Iran” The Atlantic January 16, 2026 https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/01/the-iranians-who-feel-betrayed-by-the-left/685644/ 


    Asma Abdi, “A feminist international political economy of sanctions: crises and the shifting gendered regimes of labor and survival in Iran” International Feminist Journal of Politics August 15, 2022 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2025.2454462 


    Iman Ganji and Bahar Noorizadeh, “Iran’s Three Body Problem” N Plus One January 16, 2026 https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/irans-three-body-problem/?fbclid=PAdGRleAPY0pBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAaflBX0em6er1z0KbzOClKd6DOApTeHXqHWUwi43cCt9p_j8yZur4Ipw7RGZSQ_aem_5uz1JbQNzT2KXqezqXAUqw 


    Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Scylla and Charybdis” New Left Review January 20, 2026 https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/scylla-and-charybdis 

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 13: Ned Leadbeater

    Episode 13: Ned Leadbeater

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today on the podcast we have an interview with Ned Leadbeater, a researcher and analyst based in Britain who recently wrote an article for our Summer/Fall double issue on the material politics of normalization titled, “Fiber Optics and the Hidden Politics of Connectivity.” His article explores the politics surrounding undersea fiber optic cables in the Red Sea and plans for possible overland cable routes through the Middle East. Currently, the vast majority of internet traffic between Europe and Asia flows through the Red Sea—as much as 90 percent, making it vulnerable to cargo ship accidents and Egypt’s high installation and transit fees. Before  October 7, 2023, major tech companies like Google and Meta were developing plans to bypass that Red Sea bottleneck by creating new overland and undersea cable routes from the Mediterranean   across Israel and Jordan to the Gulf states that would necessitate new forms of normalization, particularly with Saudi Arabia. James Ryan, MERIP’s executive director, spoke with Ned Leadbeater about the actors involved in fiber optic cable politics, the longer geopolitical history of telecommunications infrastructure in the region and how states and corporations may be rethinking their security strategies in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza. 


    This conversation was recorded on December 16, 2025.


    Further Reading: 


    Ned Leadbeater, “Fiber Optics and the Hidden Politics of Connectivity” Middle East Report Fall/Summer 2025, https://www.merip.org/2025/10/fiber-optics-and-the-hidden-politics-of-connectivity/  

    Paul Cochrane’s reporting at Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/paul-cochrane

    Submarine Telecoms Forum, https://subtelforum.com/ 

    Nicole Starosielski, The Undersea Network Duke University Press, 2015 https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-undersea-network 

    Pauline Lewis, “Wired Ottomans: A Sociotechnical History of the Telegraph and the Modern Ottoman Empire, 1855-1911” Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 2018 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/985895xr 


    Support MERIP by making a one-time or monthly donation at www.merip.org/donate 

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 12: Honoring Joe Stork, Live in Washington, DC

    Episode 12: Honoring Joe Stork, Live in Washington, DC

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On this episode of the MERIP Podcast we're sharing highlights of our live event Honoring Joe Stork, held at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. on November 22, 2025. The event featured reflections and reminiscences about Joe Stork, our co-founder and longtime editor who passed away October 23, 2024. Featured speakers included Sarah Leah Whitson, Lisa Hajjar, Mouin Rabbani, Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman, Rick Reinhard, Andy Shallal and Joan Mandel. The event was MC'd by Joost Hiltermann, a MERIP contributor and analyst at the International Crisis Group. All of the speakers shared stories of their experience working with Joe, from the founding of MERIP in the 1970s through his work with Human Rights Watch later in his career.


    MERIP is grateful to the staff at Busboys and Poets for hosting us, and Andy Shallal, the owner of Busboys and Poets, for joining the proceedings to share a few words.


    To support MERIP's work so that it continues to be paywall-free, please visit www.merip.org/donate today to make a one-time or monthly donation.

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 11: In the Archive with Beshara Doumani

    Episode 11: In the Archive with Beshara Doumani

    · The MERIP Podcast

    Today we have a very special episode, part of a new occasional series that will highlight some of the truly great work MERIP has done over the last 50-plus years, all of which is free to read in our archive. In the first of this series, we’re featuring the landmark essay “Abu Farid’s House” written by Beshara Doumani and published in March 1989 as part of Issue 157, “Israel Faces the Uprising.” The essay encapsulates the history of working class struggles in Palestine up to and during the First Intifada through the family of the titular Abu Farid in Salfit, a small village located between Ramallah and Nablus. 


    The author, Beshara Doumani, went on to become a leading historian of Palestine in the Ottoman era. He served as the President of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank from 2021–2023 and is now the inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies at Brown University. This episode features an interview with Doumani by MERIP Executive Director James Ryan recorded on October 30th from the West Bank, where Doumani is currently on sabbatical conducting research in some of the same villages he visited when he wrote “Abu Farid’s House.” The conversation covers his experience in Salfit and its surroundings before and during the First Intifada, as well as how he understands the changes in Salfit and across the Occupied Territories, from the Oslo Accords through the present genocide in Gaza.


    Further Reading: 


    Beshara Doumani, “Abu Farid’s House” Middle East Report 157, March-April 1989 https://www.merip.org/1989/03/abu-farids-house/ 


    “Israel Faces the Uprising” Middle East Report 157, March-April 1989 https://www.merip.org/issue-157/ 


    Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley, University of California Press 1995) https://www.ucpress.edu/books/rediscovering-palestine/paper 


    Support MERIP: https://www.merip.org/donate/


    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 10: Raouf Farrah

    Episode 10: Raouf Farrah

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On this episode of The MERIP Podcast we are featuring an interview with Raouf Farrah, an Algerian activist and researcher based in Tunis, about his article "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" which appears in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization (Summer/Fall 2025). In the interview, Farrah and MERIP Executive Director James Ryan discuss Farah's experience traveling with the Sumud Convoy across North Africa in June and July 2025, and the efforts to reconfigure their mission in the months after being turned back in Sirte by forces allied with Khalifa Haftar. Farrah reflects on the lessons of the Convoy and the later Global Sumud Flotilla in light of the present ceasefire in Gaza, and how those experiences are informing new ways of thinking about Palestinian solidarity, and political activism.


    This conversation was recorded October 14, 2025


    Further Reading:

    Raouf Farrah "On the Road to Rafah -- The Sumud Convoy and New Maghrebi Geographies of Resistance" in Middle East Report 315-316 Material Politics of Normalization https://www.merip.org/2025/10/on-the-road-to-rafah-the-sumud-convoy-and-new-maghrebi-geographies-of-resistance/

    Raouf Farrah and Suraya Dadoo, eds., Rising for Palestine: Africans in Solidarity for Decolonization and Liberation (Pluto Books, forthcoming 2026): https://www.plutobooks.com/product/rising-for-palestine/

    The Hague Group: https://thehaguegroup.org/

    Middle East Report, The Material Politics of Normalization, Summer/Fall 2025 https://www.merip.org/issue-315-316/

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 9: The MERIP Roundtable

    Episode 9: The MERIP Roundtable "On The Regional War"

    · The MERIP Podcast

    On today's episode we are providing another installment of our MERIP Roundtable, where members of our Editorial Committee discuss recent developments in the region. Today's roundtable, "On the Regional War" focuses on the fallout from Israel's September 9th strike on Qatar, a failed assassination attempt targeting the Hamas delegation that is involved in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The panel also discusses the Iran-Israel War, which has been frozen since June but is approaching a period where tensions seem to be quietly ratcheting towards more conflict. Joining the panel are Kevin Schwartz, Deputy Director of the Oriental Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Maziyar Ghiabi, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, Shana Marshall, Assistant Research Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University, and James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director.


    This conversation was recorded on September 23, 2025.


    The panel provided the following further reading recommendations:


    Maziyar Ghiabi -- Trita Parsi's 2008 book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300143119/treacherous-alliance/


    Kevin Schwartz -- "Echoes of a Short War: Critical Reflections on Israel's Attack on Iran" (edited by Nazanin Shahrokhni and Arash Davari) at Jadaliyya https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46907/Echoes-of-a-Short-War-Critical-Reflections-on-Israel%E2%80%99s-Attack-on-Iran


    Shana Marshall -- The American Prestige Podcast (https://americanprestige.supportingcast.fm/listen) and Adam Hanieh's collected works (latest book here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/2760-crude-capitalism?srsltid=AfmBOoryMbUuLhOyieEStgex70POT89GPm-pCOv57EOU269THYdNYhbd)


    James Ryan -- Arang Keshavarzian's review of Elham Fakhro's The Abraham Accords at MERIP, "The Limits of Protections and Profits, Five Years Into the Abraham Accords"

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 8: Helen Lackner

    Episode 8: Helen Lackner

    · The MERIP Podcast

    This episode of the MERIP podcast features an interview with longtime MERIP contributor and noted journalist Helen Lackner on the state of Yemen's Houthi movement. The conversation with MERIP Executive Director James Ryan follows up on her essay, "Yemen's Ansar Allah" that was published in our Winter 2024 Issue of Middle East Report on "Resistance: The Axis and Beyond." We discussed the increasingly aggressive posture of the United States and Israel against the Houthis since the Trump administration took office, the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Yemen following the dismantling of USAID, and the status the Houthis now occupy following the fall of Bashar al-Asad and the recent attacks by the US and Israel against Iran.


    For more reading, check out:


    Helen Lackner, "Yemen's Ansar Allah" Middle East Report Issue 313 Winter 2024: https://merip.org/2025/01/yemens-ansar-allah/

    Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis (Verso Books): https://www.versobooks.com/products/914-yemen-in-crisis?srsltid=AfmBOoolUV-kV830hOECamRpfgkWhQJBq06JU2YzV9wT8Z5lAGXv28mi

    Stacey Philbrick Yadav, "The Houthi's 'Sovereign Solidarity' with Palestine" Middle East Report Issue 309 Winter 2023: https://merip.org/2024/01/the-houthis-sovereign-solidarity-with-palestine-2/


    To support MERIP please visit www.merip.org/donate

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Episode 7: Syria at the Crossroads III

    Episode 7: Syria at the Crossroads III

    · The MERIP Podcast

    This week in the feed we have the audio from our August 14th, 2025 event "Syria at the Crossroads: Unpacking Sectarianism and the Crisis in Suweida." The conversation features perspectives from Syrian journalists, scholars, and activists Sara Ajlyakin, Sana Mustafa, and Yasser Munif, and was co-moderated by James Ryan (MERIP) and Shireen Akram-Boshar (SPECTRE). This is the third event in our series on Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Asad, and is co-produced with SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal.

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 6: The MERIP Roundtable,

    Episode 6: The MERIP Roundtable, "On Recognition"

    · The MERIP Podcast

    The MERIP Roundtable is a new format for the MERIP podcast featuring conversation on urgent issues in the Middle East with members of MERIP's Editorial Committee. The theme of this episode's conversation is "Recognition" -- both the widening circle of Israeli, diaspora, and Jewish figures and institutions that are belatedly recognizing the facts of the genocide in Gaza and the recent wave of G7 states who have committed to recognizing the State of Palestine. On the podcast are MERIP Editorial Committee members Lisa Hajjar, Jacob Mundy, and Sean Yom, and the conversation is led by MERIP's Executive Director, James Ryan.


    Further reading recommended by the panel:

    Jacob Mundy recommends Benjamin Claude Brower's A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902

    Lisa Hajjar recommends Noura Erakat and Shahd Hammouri "The Statehood Trap" on Jadaliyya, Rabea Eghbariah "Toward Nakba as Legal Concept" in the Columbia Law Review, Mouin Rabbani's Substack and Sherene Seikaly's Editor's Note in the latest issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

    James Ryan recommends Esmat Elhalaby, "Nakba Denial: On the Politics and History of Genocide" in Parapraxis Magazine

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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  • Episode 5: Syria at the Crossroads II

    Episode 5: Syria at the Crossroads II

    · The MERIP Podcast

    This week on the MERIP Podcast Feed we have the audio recording of our June 23rd event "Syria at the Crossroads: Regional Politics and the Movement for Palestine." This conversation was the second in our series jointly produced with SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal. It featured a discussion of the wider regional politics shaping the dynamics of the transitional regime in Syria -- including the early efforts at normalization with Israel, and the long history of solidarity between Syrian and Palestinian popular movements. Joining the conversation were Joseph Daher, Ramah Kudaimi, and Yasmeen Mobayed. The conversation was moderated by Shireen Akram-Boshar (SPECTRE) and James Ryan (MERIP).

    The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls.

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