In this interview with El Kontessa, Huda Asfour highlights her trajectory from visual arts and graphic design to becoming one of Cairo's most sought after DJ's. Experimenting with Shabi music and Mahraganaat to produce fresh mixes with a clear identity is what sets El Kontessa apart.

UCLA Professor and Bernie Sanders surrogate challenges both Silicon Valley and the Ivory Tower of academia to find the the heart of technological emancipation from Egypt's Tahrir Square to US politics.

The prominent Egyptian revolutionary socialist and host of popular online series "To Your Left" discusses his Marxist political literacy, the struggles faced by and future aspirations of leftists in post-revolutionary Egypt, the rise of Bernie Sanders in the United States, and the new ways to make political economic literacy fun for the country's youth with a new savvy show.

In this interview, artist and filmmaker, Dima Yassin, discusses her long overdue visit to Iraq at the height of the country's revolution. She reflects on the sociopolitical transformations happening in the country, the role that women play in the uprising, and her new film shot from Baghdad's revolutionary epicentre, Tahrir Square.

How are the politics of Islamic studies gendered, and what does this mean for the field? Professor Kecia Ali's keynote speech addressed this and other questions at the 17th Annual Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies Graduate Student Conference.

Courtesy of the Islamicate Graduate Student Association (IGSA) https://heellife.unc.edu/organization/igsa
https://islamicstudiesconf2020.web.unc.edu/

In this interview, Jonathan Adler, managing editor of Tadween Publishing, sits down with Ziad Abu-Rish to discuss The Dawn of the Uprisings, the growth of Jadaliyya as an archive, and the current wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa.

About the Book
The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings sheds light on the historical background and initial impact of the mass uprisings that have shaken the Arab world since December 2010. The book brings together the best writers from the online journal Jadaliyya, which has established itself as an unparalleled source of information and critical analysis on the Middle East. 



The authors, many of whom live in the countries affected, provide unique understanding and first-hand accounts of events that have received superficial and partial coverage in Western and Arab media alike. While the book focuses on those states that have been most affected by the uprisings, it also covers the impact on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.



The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings covers the full range of issues involved in these historic events, from political economy and the role of social media, to international politics, gender and labor, making this the ideal one-stop introduction to the events for the novice and specialist alike.

To read more about this book, follow this link:
https://tadweenpublishing.com/collections/books/products/dawn-of-the-arab-uprisings-1

Status host Omar Shanti traces Raï throughout its history from its inception in the 1930’s until the early 2000’s. This podcast episode will analyze Raï not as a strictly musical phenomenon, but as a vehicle for articulating and embodying complex narratives. In the tradition of Schade-Poulsen (1999), it will treat Raï as a total social fact defined by the situated practices of performance and listening - which in the age of records also translate to production and consumption.

In this timely interview with Ziad Abu-Rish, VOMENA's Shahram Aghamir asks about Lebanon's economic crisis, it's worst in decades. Part 1 features discussion on the roots of the economic crisis and its connection to developmental failures. Part 2 centers on the protest movement and the implications of the coronavirus.