The afikra Podcast

Laila Lalami talked about her award-winning books, The Other American, The Moor’s Account, Secret Son, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits & Conditional Citizens. Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of five books, including The Moor’s Account , which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/...

BURNING ISSUES |  Featuring: Mary Ellen Carroll (artist and activist), Adib Dada (architect, eco activist, and founder, theotherdada) & Tansha Vohra(researcher and current resident, serendipity arts foundation). PART OF  CULTURES IN CONVERSATION: PRELUDES & POSTSCRIPTS. The brand new series with Alserkal and powered by afikra. Cultures in Conversation is commissioned by Expo2020 Dubai and programm...

Daniel Newman talked about his work on travel, geography and food in the 19th century. Daniel Newman holds the Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham (UK). His research and publications have centred on Arabic geographical and travel literature, 19th-century reform movements in Egypt and Tunisia, and medieval Arab culinary history. In 2009, he was the co-recipient of the World Award of...

Reem Kassis talked about her work on the intersection of food, culture, and politics, notably in Palestine. Reem Kassis' debut cookbook, The Palestinian Table (2017), won The Guild of Food Writers Award and Gourmand World Cookbook award, was nominated for a James Beard Award, was short-listed for the Andre Simon Award and the Edward Stanford Award, and was picked as one of NPR's best books of 2017...

Mounia Akl talked about her latest film "Costa Brava, Lebanon." Mounia Akl is a director and writer from Lebanon. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from ALBA, Beirut and an MFA in Directing from Columbia University, New York and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®. Her first feature film, Costa Brava Lebanon, premiered in 2021 at the Venice Film Festival, To...

Dania Bdeir talked about her latest film "Warsha." Born in Montreal, Dania Bdeir is a Lebanese-Canadian award-winning writer & director with an intense love/hate relationship with Lebanon which she finds to be her biggest heartache and sincerest inspiration. Dania, who’s originally Syrian and is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, has a BA in Graphic Design from the American University...

Naomi Shihab Nye talked about her books ‘The Turtle of Oman’ and ‘The Turtle of Michigan .  The books are about Aref as he travels from Muscat, Oman, to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and Nye spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She earned...

Youmna Saba performed three pieces: Al Sobh (الصبح), Madd W Jazr (مد وجزر) & Hubut (هبوط), followed by a discussion. Youmna Saba (Beirut, 1984) is a musician and musicologist whose current research focuses on the musical dimension(s) of the Arabic language, as a tool to generate new methods of working with electronics. She released 4 albums to this day and collaborated with musicians of different...

Darine Hotait talked about her new film "Tallahassee." Darine Hotait is a writer and film director. Her work focuses on the politics of identity, Arab & African diaspora, and science fiction. She has written and directed a dozen award-winning narrative films that can be seen on Sundance Channel, The New Yorker , AMC Networks, BBC, Forbes, Outfest Now, ShortsTV, and at numerous Oscar-qualifying int...

Barbara A. Porter talked about archaeological research and heritage preservation in Jordan. Barbara A. Porter was the Director of the American Center of Oriental Research in Jordan from April 2006 to March 2020. ACOR was established in 1968 and its permanent headquarters in Amman opened in 1986 across from the University of Jordan. From the outset, ACOR (now the American Center of Research, www.ac...

Myrna Atalla talked about philanthropy in the Middle East and the work of Alfanar, London. Since 2010, Myrna Atalla has overseen Alfanar's growth and expansion. Prior to joining Alfanar, Atalla worked for the National Democratic Insititute for International Affairs (NDI) in Beirut, Lebanon from 2004 to 2008, managing its civil society strengthening partnerships. Atalla also engaged in regional ini...

Michel Moushabeck talked about his work in writing, editing, and publishing. Michel S. Moushabeck is a writer, editor, translator, publisher, and musician of Palestinian descent. He is the founder of Interlink Publishing, a 35-year-old, Massachusetts-based independent publishing house specializing in fiction-in-translation, history and current affairs, illustrated children’s books, and award-winni...

Nargisse Benkabbou talked about her approaches to Moroccan Cuisine and her chosen single ingredient: Tagine. Nargisse Benkabbou was raised in Brussels, where she grew up in a strongly food-oriented family that continually nurtured her connection with her roots and country of origin, Morocco. After living in Brussels and Paris, Nargisse moved to London to pursue her education in Politics only to re...

Andrew Simon talked about his latest book "Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt." Media of the Masses  investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Andrew Simon is a historian of media, popular culture, and the...

Nada Shabout talked about her research and teaching that address modern and contemporary visual practices and problems of representation from a global perspective, emphasizing on questions of methodology and in relation to the cultural politics of the Middle East. Nada Shabout is a regent professor of art history and coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative at th...

Farouk El-Baz talked about his career in archaeology, electrical engineering, space, and geology. He was a lead scientist on the NASA Apollo 11 team in 1969. Egyptian born Farouk El Baz has been research professor and director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University since 1986. While working with the Apollo Space Program (1967-72), he applied satellite imagery to moon surfaces and ch...

Omar Berrada talked about his major written works on migration and racial politics. Omar Berrada is a writer and curator, and the director of Dar al-Ma’mûn, a library and artists residency in Marrakech. His work focuses on the politics of translation and intergenerational transmission. He is the author of the poetry collection Clonal Hum (2020), and the editor or co-editor of several books, includ...

Ahmed Al-Refaie talked about his designs inspired by Middle Eastern cultures and traditions and brought in a vibrant and modern style. Ahmed Al-Refaie (OwaikeO) is an illustrator and graphic designer from Kuwait. Throughout his career, Ahmed’s fascination with the past grew year after year and has become focused on the Middle Eastern cultures and traditions brought in a vibrant and modern style. H...

Khaled Beydoun talked his work on race theory, islamophobia, national security policy, civil liberties, and citizenship. Khaled A. Beydoun is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, and Senior Affiliated Faculty at the University of California Berkeley Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project. A Critical Race Theorist, Professor Beydoun’s research exami...

Nadia Bseiso & Farah Foudeh talked about their different approaches to photography. Nadia Bseiso is a Jordanian documentary photographer based in Amman. She completed a degree in photography from Florence, Italy in 2011, returning for a residency in Fondazione Fotografia in Modena, in 2015. She concentrates on long term projects, based on personal research in geopolitics, history, anthropology and...

Christina Riggs talked about ancient Egypt and how the fields of archaeology, art history, and Egyptology developed in tandem with colonial and imperial expansion. Christina is historian of photography and archaeology, with a particular interest in North Africa and the Middle East. Her research has considered how different people, at different times, have imagined, studied, and represented the cul...

Mariam Al-Dhubhani talked about her latest project, "Musalem: Beekeeping in Yemen - A 360 VR Experience Film." Mariam Al-Dhubhani is a Yemeni-Russian award-winning journalist, filmmaker, curator, and educator based in the MENA region. She first pursued her passion for media during the 2011 Arab uprisings and co-founded her first media production. Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna , afikra  Edited...

Huda Fakhreddine talked about modernist movements or trends in Arabic poetry and their relationship to the Arabic literary tradition. Huda Fakhreddine’s work focuses on modernist movements or trends in Arabic poetry and their relationship to the Arabic literary tradition. She is interested in the role of the Arabic qaṣīda as a space for negotiating the foreign and the indigenous, the modern and th...

Jill Jarvis talked about the aesthetics and politics of North Africa and her book “Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony.”  Jill Jarvis specializes in the aesthetics and politics of North Africa. Her forthcoming book, Decolonizing Memory : Algeria and the Politics of Testimony, brings together close readings of fiction with analyses of juridical, theoretical, and activist text...

Youssef Rakha talked about his writing on post-Muslim perspectives in Arabic and Egyptian literature. Youssef Rakha is a novelist, poet, essayist and journalist who writes in both Arabic and English. His interests include Arab porn and the possibility of a post-Muslim perspective. His first two novels The Book of the Sultan’s Seal and The Crocodiles appeared in English in early 2015. Frequently an...