LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts

Speaker: Aitemad Muhanna-Matar Chair: Sumi Madhok, LSE In this talk, Dr Muhanna-Matar discusses her new book, which explores how gender and gender relations of power in Gaza are renegotiated to develop material mechanisms of coping or resistance. The book provides empirical evidence of Gazan women’s capacity to actively exercise their agency. Recorded on 20 January 2014.

Speaker: Omar Nashabe In this talk, Dr Nashabe discusses the creation of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and addresses the tribunal's decision to indict five members of Hezbollah and in turn to try them in absentia. Recorded on 16 January 2014.

Speaker: Yezid Sayigh, Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre Professor Sayigh explores the nature of Syria’s revolution, its armed rebellion, and its opposition. He reflects on the drivers and dynamics of armed struggle and its impacts, placing this in comparative perspective with other historical experiences and anticipating likely trajectories going forw...

Speaker: Anoush Ehteshami, Durham University Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre The victory of President Hassan Rouhani represents the defeat of the most peripheral groups in the Iranian political. In this talk, Professor Ehteshami asks what drives President Rouhani’s worldview and what does his election victory tell us about Iran and the where it might be heading? Recorded on 27 November 2...

Speaker: Lina Sinjab, BBC Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE In this talk, Lina Sinjab focuses on the realities on the ground in Syria and the resilient civil society that is striving to continue amidst civil war. Recorded on 22 November 2013.

Speaker: Roger Owen, Harvard University Chair: Charles Tripp, LSE Roger Owen offers a personal history of the emergence of modern Middle Eastern Studies as a distinct multi-disciplinary field, focusing mainly on the creation of University Centres in London, Oxford, Harvard and others by a set of academic entrepreneurs beginning with Sir Hamilton Gibb.

Speaker: Madawi Al-Rasheed, LSE Middle East Centre Chair: Sumi Madhok, LSE Professor Al-Rasheed introduces her new book and discusses the ‘question of women’ in Saudi Arabia in the context of interconnection between state, religion and society. Recorded on 7 October 2013.

Speakers: Laila El-Haddad, Maggie Schmitt Chair: Helena Cobbin, Just World Books In this event, writer Laila El-Haddad and food documentarian Maggie Schmitt discuss their book 'The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey', which represent the first-ever codification of Gaza's rich culinary heritage. Recorded on 8 May 2013.

Speakers: Steffen Hertog, LSE; Giacomo Luciani, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Marc Valeri, University of Exeter; Khalid AlMezaini, Qatar University Chair: Jon Marks Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations. This launch for 'Business Politics in the Middle East' (Hurst, 2013) covers the political...

Speaker: Ali Ansari, University of St Andrews Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE Middle East Centre Launching his latest book, 'The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran', Ali Ansari explores the idea of nationalism in the creation of modern Iran, considering the broader developments in national ideologies that took place following the emergence of the European Enlightenment and showing how these ideas were...

Speakers: Fawaz Gerges, LSE; Charles Tripp, SOAS Chair: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, LSE What drives large-scale, popular mobilizations in the Middle East and North Africa? And what are the challenges and prospects for democratic transformation and consolidation in the region? This book launch for 'The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World' (CUP, 2013), explores these questions a...

Speaker: Valerie Bunce, Cornell University Chair: Fawaz Gerges, LSE Why do publics decide to challenge authoritarian rulers; why do they take different approaches to achieving these ends; and what explains the spread of such challenges across state boundaries? In this lecture, Valerie Bunce compares these three waves of popular challenges to authoritarian rulers providing insights into the MENA dy...

Speaker: Rabah Aissaoui, University of Leicester Chair: John King, Society for Algerian Studies In this talk, Dr Aissaoui examines some key developments in the political mobilisation of Algerians prior to the Second World War. He looks at how the French colonial authorities, and more specifically the French security services, responded to the political situation in Algeria by implementing a number...

Speaker: Dr Tariq Tell, American University of Beirut Chair: Professor Fawaz Gerges, LSE Dr Tell contextualises contemporary politics in Jordan by examining the history of the emergence and consolidation of the modern state in Jordan under Ottoman, British, and Hashemite rule. He explores how the sources of Hashemite social power in Jordan were forged and why they have proven more durable than tho...

Speaker: Haleh Afshar Chair: Alastair Newton, BRISMES Prominent Muslim feminist Baroness Haleh Afshar speaks on the situation facing Iranian women in their country today. Recorded on 16 January 2013. Image credit: Wikipedia. Women protesting during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.