New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

In Water the Willow Tree: Memoirs of a Bethlehem Boyhood (Gorgias Press, 2022), George A. Kiraz tells the story of a young Palestinian boy growing up in Bethlehem, fascinated with understanding his Syriac roots even as he drew steadily nearer to the day when he would inevitably be transplanted to the United States.George first traces his ancestors’ migration from Upper Mesopotamia—present-day Turkey—to Palestine in the aftermath of the horrific Sayfo genocide of 1915 (known more popularly as the Armenian genocide); in doing so, he provides a personal history of the Syriac presence in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.He then describes the realities of that presence through memories from his own boyhood, offering an intimate look at myriad aspects of Syriac life in Palestine in the 1970s and ’80s: church community and religious identity, brushes with ancient history and artifacts, conflicts with the Israeli occupation, fraught custodianship of Christian holy places in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Readers will meet many of the community members who influenced and encouraged George in his nascent academic interests, and they will even learn about his father’s role in the legendary discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.George is known for his contributions to Syriac studies and to the preservation of the Syriac language and heritage. These tasks, though, are not just the sum of his professional CV; they are the story of his life, his ancestry, his family’s survival. This memoir chronicles his lifelong investment in the Syriac world and the childhood experiences that would later shape so much of his later academic life.Water the Willow Tree offers an illuminating account of a Bethlehem boyhood to readers with a range of interests; anyone interested in modern Syriac heritage and diaspora, the Sayfo genocide, Palestinian history, or religious pluralism and minority communities will be alternately informed, entertained, and moved by George’s story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often portrayed as a homogeneous, helpless group ever at the mercy of their Muslim enemies, a situation that only Western powers can remedy. The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire (Baylor UP, 2021) revisits this narrative with a critical eye. Mitri Raheb charts the plight of Christians in the Middle East from the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799 to the so-called Arab Spring. The book analyzes the diverse socioeconomic and political factors that led to the diminishing role and numbers of Christians in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the eras of Ottoman, French, and British Empires, through the eras of independence, Pan-Arabism, and Pan-Islamism, and into the current era of American empire. With an incisive exposé of the politics that lie behind alleged concerns for these persecuted Christians--and how the concept of persecution has been a tool of public diplomacy and international politics--Raheb reveals that Middle Eastern Christians have been repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of Western national interests. The West has been part of the problem for Middle Eastern Christianity and not part of the solution, from the massacre on Mount Lebanon to the rise of ISIS. The Politics of Persecution, written by a well-known Palestinian Christian theologian, provides an insider perspective on this contested region. Middle Eastern Christians survived successive empires by developing great elasticity in adjusting to changing contexts; they learned how to survive atrocities and how to resist creatively while maintaining a dynamic identity. In this light, Raheb casts the history of Middle Eastern Christians not so much as one of persecution but as one of resilience.Byung Ho Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Ecumenics program at Princeton Theological Seminary, concentrating in World Christianity and history of religions. His research focuses on the indigenous expressions of Christianities found in Southeast Asia, particularly Christianity that is practiced in the Muslim-dominant archipelagic nation of Indonesia. More broadly, he is interested in history and the anthropology of Christianity, complexities of religious conversion and social identity, inter-religious dialogue, ecumenism, and World Christianity.Tala Raheb is a doctoral candidate in Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Religions (AAMER) at Emory University. Her dissertation examines how Palestinian American Christians interact with Christian Zionism at the intersection of American religion and politics. In addition to her work in AAMER, Tala is pursuing a concentration in World Christianity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Art has a long history of engaging with conflict and violence. From the antiquities, through Goya, to Guernica, our museums are filled with depictions of battles, pogroms, uprisings, and their suppression. Not all of these stories are told from the perspective of the victors.Many contemporary creatives have continued this tradition. While the position of the official war artist seems to have gone out of fashion, conflict hasn’t. Artists are compelled to document the violence and conflict that for some is the matter of the everyday.Kaelan Wilson-Goldie's Beautiful, Gruesome, and True: Artists at Work in the Face of War (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) is an account of the lives and practices of three such artists Teresa Margolles, Amar Kanwar, and the collective Abounadorra. The documents which these practices produce have found their way into the mainstream contemporary art world, for better, or often worse.Kaelan Wilson-Goldie speaks about the implicit contracts artists enter with their communities, the art world's exploitative interest in conflict, and the role of aesthetic expression in mediating, if not ameliorating conflict.Kaelen Wilson-Goldie is a writer and critic who contributes regularly to Artforum, Aperture, and Afterall, among other publications. She is the author of Etel Adnan, a monographic study on the paintings of the Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan, and a contributor to numerous books on modern and contemporary art, including Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes and Huguette Caland: Everything Takes the Shape of a Person. She lives in New York City and Beirut.Teresa Margolles was born in Culiacán, Mexico, and is a conceptual artist known for incorporating the physical memory of conflict and pain into her work. Documentation of Margolles' pavilion in in Venice in 2009, Her works at Mor Charpenter and Peter Kilchmann, Her Fourth Plinth proposal for London. Abounaddara is an anonymous collective known for producing more than 400 short films chronicling the uprising and civil war in Syria. Abounaddara at Documenta 14, The Right to the Image (in Arabic) The Islamic State for Dummies - Part One, 2014. Amar Kanwar was born in New Delhi, India, and has distinguished himself through films and multi‐media works which explore the politics of power, violence and justice. Amar Kanwar's The Season Outside, 1997, and Many Faces of Madness, 2000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Beginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953, the Iranian oil crisis was a crucial turning point in the global Cold War. The nationalization challenged Great Britain's preeminence in the Middle East and threatened Western oil concessions everywhere. Fearing the loss of Iran and possibly the entire Middle East and its oil to communist control, the United States and Great Britain played a key role in the ouster of Mosaddeq, a constitutional nationalist opposed to communism and Western imperialism. U.S. intervention helped entrench monarchical power, and the reversal of Iran's nationalization confirmed the dominance of Western corporations over the resources of the Global South for the next twenty years.Drawing on years of research in American, British, and Iranian sources, David S. Painter and Gregory Brew provide a concise and accessible account of Cold War competition, Anglo-American imperialism, covert intervention, the political economy of global oil, and Iran's struggle against autocratic government. The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951-1954 (UNC Press, 2023) dispels myths and misconceptions that have hindered understanding this pivotal chapter in the history of the post–World War II world.Grant Golub is an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD candidate in U.S. and international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His research examines the politics of American grand strategy during World War II. Follow him on Twitter @ghgolub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

For generations, the composition and recitation of poetry has been a key mode of expression among Bedouin populations in the Middle East, reflecting social norms, religious practices, relationships with the natural environment, and tribal histories and politics.In Words Like Daggers: The Political Poetry of the Negev Bedouin (Brill, 2022), Kobi Peled, Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, analyzes a corpus of poetry collected among the Bedouin of the Negev Desert over the past 100 years for themes of political resistance, dissidence, and reactions to the political changes facing the Negev Bedouin. The poems reveal how the Negev Bedouin responded to and perceived changes in state authority and rule from the late Ottoman period to the contemporary state of Israel. Peled argues that in addition to being a creative and artistic mode of expression, poetry and a close reading of Bedouin poetry can serve as a lens onto Bedouin worldviews, sentiments, and reactions to and participation in processes political formations and state-building undergone in the Negev region during the 20th century.Maggie Freeman is a PhD student in the School of Architecture at MIT. She researches uses of architecture by nomadic peoples and historical interactions of nomads and empires, with a focus on the modern Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Mostafa Minawi's Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire (Stanford University Press, 2022) offers an intimate history of empire, following the rise and fall of a generation of Arab-Ottoman imperialists living in Istanbul. Minawi shows how these men and women negotiated their loyalties and guarded their privileges through a microhistorical study of the changing social, political, and cultural currents between 1878 and the First World War. He narrates lives lived in these turbulent times—the joys and fears, triumphs and losses, pride and prejudices—while focusing on the complex dynamics of ethnicity and race in an increasingly Turco-centric imperial capital. Drawing on archival records, newspaper articles, travelogues, personal letters, diaries, photos, and interviews, Minawi shows how the loyalties of these imperialists were questioned and their ethnic identification weaponized. As the once diverse empire comes to an end, they are forced to give up their home in the imperial capital. An alternative history of the last four decades of the Ottoman Empire, Losing Istanbul frames global pivotal events through the experiences of Arab-Ottoman imperial loyalists who called Istanbul home, on the eve of a vanishing imperial world order.Reuben Silverman is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Western sanctions have slowed Iran's economy, causing protests against the absence of freedom and opportunities -- teachers their lack of pay; farmers their lack of water; retirees their fear of economic insecurity. But at the heart of this powerful new movement has been Iran's women, whose frustration with Iran’s misogynist theocracy had been mounting for four decades.This week on International Horizons, RBI Research Associate Ellen Chesler is joined by Mahnaz Afkhami, former Minister of Women's Affairs in Iran, and Kelly Shannon, Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, to discuss the rise of the women's movement in Iran. The interviewees describe how the different interpretations of the Quran have influenced politics and the role women play in Muslim societies, the prospects of the protests in Iran, and the importance of collective action in bringing about change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

According to a famous prophetic report, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them.” What does “imitation” here mean? Rather, what does this statement really mean at all, and how have Muslims historically understood it? How did this simple report become a doctrine in the Islamic tradition? What does this hadith mean for Muslims today, in an increasingly interreligious atmosphere and especially for those living in the West or in other non-Muslim-majority contexts? Finally, why do humans invest so much in being different and displaying their difference from those they declare as an ‘other’? These and many other questions are answered in Youshaa Patel’s exciting book The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present, published in 2022 with Yale University Press. The book explores the issue of difference and frames the hadith as significant to Muslim interreligious encounters, showing that ideas and examples of imitation—and Muslims’ understanding of the concept—have changed throughout times and in different contexts. And the debate around issues of religious difference, imitation, and Muslims’ effort to distinguish themselves from non-Muslims tells us about how Muslims understand and define religion.In our conversation today, we discuss the origins of the book, some of its main arguments and findings, the prophetic reports on imitation—specifically the hadith that “whoever imitates a people becomes one of them”—its role in establishing a Sunni orthodoxy given that the hadith or the concept of tashabbuh is not found in Shii collections, and influential scholars and thinkers’ development of the concept, individuals such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi. We also discuss examples of small differences that are not to be imitated, and Patel explains the significance and value of these small differences, which are quite powerful and symbolic. Our conversation ends with the relevance of imitation and emulation for today’s Muslims, including Muhammad Abduh’s Transvaal fatwa on, among other things, Muslims wearing European hats or Muslims doing Christian European things and how other Muslim scholars responded to this fatwa.Shehnaz Haqqani is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Mercer University. She earned her PhD in Islamic Studies with a focus on gender from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018. Her dissertation research explored questions of change and tradition, specifically in the context of gender and sexuality, in Islam. She can be reached at haqqani_s@mercer.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Dalal Abo El Seoud, author of "Fish, Milk, Tamarind," delves into the colorful world of Egyptian Arabic food expressions. She shares over 100 unique phrases, revealing their literal and cultural meanings, such as what it means to be 'sleeping in honey.' The discussion highlights how food metaphors enrich everyday language and reflect societal values. Dalal also emphasizes innovative methods for teaching Arabic through these expressions, showcasing their role in bridging cultural gaps and enhancing understanding among learners.

“Raise your voice!” and “Speak up!” are familiar refrains that assume, all too easily, that gaining voice will lead to empowerment, healing, and inclusion for marginalized subjects. Marlene Schäfers’s Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey (U Chicago Press, 2022) reveals where such assumptions fall short, demonstrating that “raising one’s voice” is no straightforward path to emancipation but fraught with anxieties, dilemmas, and contradictions. In its attention to the voice as form, this book examines not only what voices say but also how they do so, focusing on Kurdish contexts where oral genres have a long, rich legacy. Examining the social labor that voices carry out as they sound, speak, and resonate, Schäfers shows that where new vocal practices arise, they produce new selves and practices of social relations. In Turkey, recent decades have seen Kurdish voices gain increasing moral and political value as metaphors of representation and resistance. Women’s voices, in particular, are understood as potent means to withstand patriarchal restrictions and political oppression. By ethnographically tracing the transformations in how Kurdish women relate to and employ their voices as a result of these shifts, Schäfers illustrates how contemporary politics foster not only new hopes and desires but also create novel vulnerabilities as they valorize, elicit, and discipline voice in the name of empowerment and liberation.Marlene Schäfers is assistant professor in cultural anthropology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. You may find some of the songs mentioned in the book and the episode here.Armanc Yildiz is a doctoral candidate in Social Anthropology with a secondary field in Studies in Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University. He is also the founder of Academics Write, where he supports scholars in their writing projects as a writing coach and developmental editor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies