Radio ReOrient

In the realm of popular culture, representations of ancient Greeks and Romans abound in the West and Western adjacent societies. Classics, primarily focused on the study of Greeks and Romans, serve as Western history's foundational narrative. However, this narrative tends to create a timeline that excludes Muslim contributions and unintentionally supports the colonial-racial agenda of the West. In this intriguing episode of Radio ReOrient, Dr Marchella Ward from the Open University and Abdoolkarim Vakil from King's College, London, engage in a discussion that explores the notable similarities and differences between two academic domains: Critical Ancient World Studies and Critical Muslim Studies. This episode serves as an anticipatory introduction to the forthcoming publication titled "The Case for Forgetting Classics," edited by Mathura Umachandran and Dr Marchella Ward. Within this volume, numerous scholars come together with a shared commitment to decolonize the study of ancient Greeks and Romans. Recorded during the Bradford Literature Festival, this conversation provides a platform for reflecting on how the discourse of ancient Greco-Romans has shaped Western perceptions of history, epistemology, and identity, underwriting the exclusion of Muslimness.

In this episode, Naoki Yamamoto, assistant professor in Turkic Studies at Marmara University sits with Hizer Mir to discuss Sufism and manga with an eye towards the possible development of an Islamicate manga. Manga is a quintessentially Japanese style of comics and graphic novels. Naoki is working towards an Islamicate version of manga in order to contribute to a growing global Islamicate culture.

This episode features the second part of a series on the Political Struggle in Pakistan. Professor Salman Sayyid, Dr. Sher Ali Tareen and Dr. Shehla Khan critically explore liberalism, populism and secularism. Focusing on how these concepts are key to understanding the deep crisis engulfing Pakistan, but are often construed in simplistic binaries rooted in orientalism that impoverish the debate, and impede the search for a resolution. In contrast, the podcast seeks to shift the debate to a post-orientalist terrain as well as one that resists the allure of methodological nationalism, and resonates with ummatic struggles more broadly. The immediate context of the discussion remains Pakistan’s subjection to a de facto military dictatorship that is waging war on its people in its bid to crush former PM Imran Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) as symbols of a more just, equitable, and less westoxicated political order.

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Sher Ali Tareen converse with Shehla Khan about the political, economic, and constitutional crisis that has been intensifying in Pakistan since the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022.

In this episode, we listen in on a symposium on Muslimness organised by the Critical Muslim Studies project. The symposium featured Abdoolkarim Vakil and Ovamir Anjum as the speakers and was chaired by Mona Makinejad.

In this episode, Salman Sayyid and Haroon Bashir sit with Fatima Rajina to discuss Muslim communities in Argentina and Chile.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Salman Sayyid to discuss the divine, texts (primary and secondary) within Islam and power.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Adam Olowo to discuss the myth of religious violence. We also discuss how far the category of religion can be used outside of Europe/the West.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Murad Idris for the second part of their discussion on his book “War for Peace”. In this part, ideas pertaining to war for peace in the thought of Al-Farabi and Qutb are discussed.

In this episode, Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Khan continue their conversation with Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, relating his writings on Imranophobia to broader questions of decoloniality, secularity, culture, and the trajectory of events in Pakistan.