Tarik Sabry, Omar al-Ghazzi, Helga Tawil-Souri and Ramy Aly

In this revealing new study, the authors preside over an original new exploration of Arab culture. They employ subjects as varied as anthropology, media studies, philosophy, political economy and cultural studies to illuminate the relationship between culture, time and publics in an Arab context, whilst also laying the foundations for a much more nuanced picture of Arab society.

Dr Zeina Maasri (University of Brighton)

Mobilised by radical networks of solidarity, stretching from Cuba, through Algeria and all the way to Vietnam, an anti-imperialist revolutionary subjectivity was being constituted through a global flow of discourses and associated translocal visuality.

Panel: Prof. Sevket Pamuk (Bogazici University); Prof. Socrates Petmezas (University of Crete); Prof. Costas Lapavitsas (SOAS); and Dr Pinar Cakiroglu (University of Crete)

Prof. Şevket Pamuk (Boğaziçi University)

Keramat Fathinia

This eight-week exercise-based course is suitable for all levels, from beginners to advanced. It is based on a one-to-one teaching method, so everyone will be given the instructions based on their own level and previous experience.

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis (SOAS)

The lecture outlines the Zionist project and its relationship with the Jewish religion and then how this was institutionalized and transformed in different periods in the history of the state of Israel, focusing on the transformation of Israel into an (atypical) neo-liberal state.

Sam Dagher (journalist)

This ground-breaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster from a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East.

Dr Joseph Daher (University of Lausanne)

Syria has been at the centre of world news since 2011, following the beginnings of a popular uprising in the country and its subsequent violent repression.

Professor Nadim Rouhana (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

In this presentation Prof. Rouhana will examine how nationalism, religious claims, and settler colonialism enmesh within Zionism and demonstrate how their interaction played a major role for Israeli academia and politics in sidelining or obfuscating settler colonialism as an appropriate frame of analysis for Zionism’s encounter with the Palestinians.

Nefertiti’s Daughters is a story of women, art, and revolution. Told by prominent Egyptian artists, this documentary witnesses the critical role revolutionary street art played during the Egyptian uprisings.

Dr Atef Alshaer (University of Westminster) and Ghada Karmi (University of Exeter)

A Map of Absence presents the finest poetry and prose by Palestinian writers over the last seventy years. Featuring writers in the diaspora and those living under occupation, these striking entries pay testament to one of the most pivotal events in modern history – the 1948 Nakba.

Professor Mohammad Farzanegan (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

This talk will be based on Professor Farzanegan's current research on the following two topics: 'The opportunity cost of the Islamic revolution and war for Iran' and 'Growing up in the Iran-Iraq war and preferences for strong defence'.

Nadia Duvall (author)

This book focuses on illuminating modern-day Islamist Occidentalism and puts in question the underlying assumptions of some of the post-9-11 scholarship which fails to understand the non-West on its own terms.

Azadeh Moaveni (International Crisis Group)

In her latest book, Guest House for Young Widows: Women of ISIS, Azadeh Moaveni looks at a cast of young women who in many instances left their comfortable lives behind to join the Islamic state.

Dr Ceren Lord (British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, St Antony’s College & Oxford School of Global and Area Studies)

Salman Abu Sitta (Founder and President of Palestine Land Society)

The Survey of Western Palestine (SWP), conducted between 1871 and 1878 and first published in 1880, was considered the first scientifically based comprehensive survey of Palestine and it was unequalled for its time.

Kaya Genç (Novelist and essayist, Istanbul)

Haneen Zoabi

In this talk, former Knesset Member (2009-2019) and renowned Palestinian leader Haneen Zoabi will argue that in light of recent developments such as President Donald Trump's so-called “Deal of the Century”.

Dr Robert Springborg

This book focuses on national and regional politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to explain why economies there are underperforming. Variations in performance are traced to historically rooted capacities of states.

Anahita Alavi

The course starts with a short historical introduction to Persian miniatures and the stylistic features of different Persian miniatures’ schools.

Rashid Khalidi and Raja Shehadeh

Rashid Khalidi and Raja Shehadeh in conversation on "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine"

Krithika Varagur

The Call chronicles the House of Saud’s vast project to systematically transform the Muslim world in its own image by spreading abroad Wahhabism, its brand of ultraconservative Islam.

Carlos Leo Roca, Librarian for Middle East & Central Asia

Professor Haim Bresheeth (SOAS) in conversation with Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)

Bresheeth-Zabner charts the evolution of the IDF from the Nakba to wars in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and the continued assaults upon Gaza, and shows that the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars.

Amirbahram Arabahmadi (University of Tehran)

This talk focuses on historical relations of Iranians and east African coasts and specifically the immigration of a group of Iranians from Shiraz to the coasts and islands of East Africa about one thousand years ago.

Victoria Brittain (former foreign correspondent and Associate Foreign Editor of The Guardian)

The first book-length study of Mai Masri, one of the world's most well-known Arab women filmmakers.

The Opening Programme of a week-long series of virtual events, the theme of which is decolonising

Cross Cultural Encounters Panel Discussion with Dina Matar, Lindiwe Dovey, and Amina Yaqin

Jessica Ayesha Northey (Coventry University)

On 22 February 2019, Algeria saw the emergence of a peaceful movement for democracy, which brought ordinary people to the streets on an unprecedented scale. Known as the hirak, weekly marches of millions led to President Bouteflika standing down.

Jonathan Fulton (Zayed University - Abu Dhabi, UAE)

China is a major economic actor in the Persian Gulf and its expansive Belt and Road Initiative ambitions add a strategic element.  In an intensely competitive regional security environment, China has maintained an unusual approach, deepening ties with all Gulf states, perhaps best exemplified by its comprehensive strategic partnerships with Iran and its rivals Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Hawraa Al-Hassan (University of Cambridge)

This book traces the turbulent history of Ba'thist discourses on women and state patronage of the novel, and explores various literary responses from a wide spectrum of Iraqi women writers.

Anoush Ehteshami (Durham University)

China has been leading the Middle East/West Asia’s ‘Asianization’ since the late 1990s and has emerged as the primary trading and investment partner of ME/WAsian countries. PRC-IRI relations in this process stand out for both geopolitical and ideo-political reasons.

Various Speakers

The sixteenth programme in The Idea of Iran annual series.

Daniel Marwecki (Hong Kong University)

According to common perception, the Federal Republic of Germany supported the formation of the Israeli state for moral reasons—to atone for its Nazi past—but did not play a significant role in the Arab–Israeli conflict. However, the historical record does not sustain this narrative.

Diana Darke (author)

This book uncovers a long yet often overlooked history of architectural ‘borrowing’, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe’s architectural heritage.

Various Speakers

Narges Bajoghli (Johns Hopkins University)

An inside look at what it means to be pro-regime in Iran, and the debates around the future of the Islamic Republic.