Episodes

  • Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)

    Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)
    Mar 21 2026
    What did slavery actually look like in the everyday lives of Jews in the medieval Middle East? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Craig Perry to discuss his groundbreaking book Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History (Princeton UP, 2026). Drawing on the extraordinary archive of the Cairo Geniza, Perry reconstructs a hidden world of enslaved people, merchants, and households in medieval Egypt. These fragments—letters, contracts, and legal questions preserved for centuries in a synagogue—reveal how slavery shaped Jewish and Islamic society at the crossroads of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. From global slave trading networks that stretched from Europe and Africa to India, to the intimate spaces of kitchens and courtyards, Perry uncovers how enslaved people lived, labored, resisted, and sometimes entered Jewish communities after gaining their freedom. The story even reframes familiar rituals: medieval Jewish children could look around the Passover table and see slavery embodied in the people serving the meal. Together, Perry and Katz explore how this overlooked history forces us to rethink medieval Jewish life, the social realities behind religious texts, and the complex entanglements of Jews with the broader Arab-Islamic world. About the Guest Craig Perry is Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University. A specialist in the social and economic history of the medieval Middle East, his research focuses on slavery, law, and everyday life in Jewish and Islamic societies. He also is the editor of The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500 – AD 1420. About the Host Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid and the author of several books on Jewish thought and the Talmud, including Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Through his writing, teaching, and podcast conversations with scholars and public thinkers, Katz brings cutting-edge scholarship into dialogue with contemporary Jewish life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    53 mins
  • Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2026)

    Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2026)
    Mar 20 2026
    The emancipatory potential and limits of land justice, when land is at once home, property, territory, and homeland. Peasant farming was once an integral part of Palestine's agrarian fabric. But after military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israeli land confiscations and economic policies pushed rural cultivators into wage labor. In recent decades, Palestinian land titling and private developers have driven the slow transformation of agricultural land into real estate. In Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine (Stanford UP, 2026) Paul Kohlbry argues that we should see these changes as part of a larger process of agrarian annihilation, one in which state violence and market coercion together devastate the social, ecological, and economic relationships that make agrarian livelihoods possible. Kohlbry tells the story of those who, refusing annihilation, struggle both for the return of land, and for their return to it. Through long-term engagements in the central highlands of the West Bank, Kohlbry shows how peasant practices and ethics matter for those fighting to rebuild collective attachments to rural places, and the surprising ways that property ownership has become a means of both land dispossession and defense. Going beyond accounts that treat the peasant as a tragic figure or a heroic national symbol, Kohlbry foregrounds the complexity of agrarian life to reveal the relationships between agrarian regeneration and political liberation—ultimately connecting Palestine within a global struggle for land justice. Paul Kohlbry is Assistant Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Matthew Moran et al., "Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Matthew Moran et al., "Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Mar 14 2026
    In 2012, US President Barack Obama stated that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on its population would cross a red line that would require the US government to reconsider its approach to the civil war then underway in Syria. Syria subsequently used such weapons, creating a policy dilemma for the United States about how to respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violation of the red line.In Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons (Oxford UP, 2025), Matthew Moran, Wyn Q. Bowen, and Jeffrey W. Knopf examine efforts by the United States, sometimes acting with France and the United Kingdom, to respond to Syria's possession and use of chemical weapons over the course of its civil war. In particular, they focus on US strategy during the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, which relied heavily on coercion, including deterrent and compellent variants. As the authors show, policies directed at the ruling Assad regime in Syria attempted to deter chemical weapons attacks and to compel Syria to give up its chemical arsenal with mixed outcomes. Drawing on the existing literature on deterrence and coercive diplomacy to identify three propositions — concerning credibility, motivations, and assurances — the book explains the mixed record of coercive success and failure and examines how effective coercive strategies were at different points and why.Drawing on the most significant attempt in the post-Cold War era to deter the use of a weapon of mass destruction, this book offers theoretical and practical lessons for both security studies scholars and policymakers. Our guest is Professor Jeff Knopf, a Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), where he serves as chair of the M.A. program in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    38 mins
  • Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

    Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr
    Mar 12 2026
    Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He’s the author of several books dealing with Iran, including most recently Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (Princeton University Press, 2025). Nasr was born in Tehran in 1960 and is currently a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In our talk, he discusses his surprise at the resilience the Iranian government has so far displayed in the war, as well as the high degree of advance planning the government performed in anticipation of the attack. Although many Iranians do not like the Islamic Republic, he told me, there is nevertheless a resurgent element of Iranian nationalism in Iranian society. The West, he believes, underestimates the cohesion of Iran. Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Paul Starobin is a former contributing editor of The Atlantic and a former Moscow bureau chief of Business Week. His companion Substack newsletter America and Beyond includes transcripts of podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    48 mins
  • Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)

    Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)
    Feb 21 2026
    I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) is a young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visit Mai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to live, so he asks her to join him in China where he runs a business empire about which Mai knows nothing. Mai agrees to go in the hopes that they will become close, but this strange new country is as unknowable to her as her father. There, the ghosts of the Nakba come to haunt them both. With this grief comes violence, and a tragic death brings a whole new meaning to the word erasure. In a narrative made rich by its layers of fragmentation, as befitting the splintered and disordered existence of exile over generations, this courageous memoir spans Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai, China and, of course, Palestine. It is filled with bitter tragedy and loss and woven through with an understated humor and much grace. Mai Serhan is a Palestinian writer who grew up in Egypt. She is the author of CAIRO: the undelivered letters, winner of the 2022 Center for Book Arts Poetry Award, and I Have Never Been to the Place Where I am From, But I Will Imagine It For Us, a finalist for the 2022 Narratively Memoir Prize. She holds an MSt in creative writing from Oxford University, and has studied at NYU and AUC. She lives in Cairo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    32 mins
  • Eray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan" (U Texas Press, 2025)

    Eray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan" (U Texas Press, 2025)
    Feb 20 2026
    Extractivism—exploiting the earth for resources—has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world where ecological and humanitarian sensibilities are unprecedentedly widespread? Eray Çaylı argues it does so by mobilizing these sensibilities in new ways. Extractivism is no longer only about moving the earth—displacing peoples, fossils, minerals, and waters—but also leaving those who witness this violent displacement sentimentally moved. Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan (U Texas Press, 2025) conceptualizes this duality. Derived from Çaylı’s years-long work in Northern Kurdistan, home to the world’s largest stateless nation—rendered stateless by colonial policies since the nineteenth century—Earthmoving focuses on the 2010s, a decade that began with peace talks between Turkey and the Kurdish liberation movement but ended with war. The decade saw extractivism intensify in the region and images of its harm proliferate across art and media. Together with contemporary artists, Çaylı shows that images challenge extractivism both by making its harm visible and by fostering self-reflexive and reciprocal collaboration that breaks with its valuation of the colonized and the racialized only in quantifiable and marketable terms. Host: Ronay Bakan is a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at European University Institute, in Italy. Her research interests include political geography, mobilization, and counterinsurgency in Southwest Asia and North Africa with a special focus on Northern Kurdistan. She is currently working on her book titled “Counterinsurgent Urbanism: Weaponizing Land and Heritage in Northern Kurdistan.” Email: ronay.bakan@eui.eu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)

    David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)
    Feb 19 2026
    In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain.The individual essays in this volume cover most of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, with essays by both established and emergent scholars of ancient religions.In a burgeoning field of “magic studies” trying both to preserve and to justify critically the category itself, this volume brings new clarity and provocative insights. This will be an indispensable resource to all interested in magic in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christianity and Judaism, Egypt through the Christian period, and also comparative and critical theory.Contributors are: Magali Bailliot, Gideon Bohak, Véronique Dasen, Albert de Jong, Jacco Dieleman, Esther Eidinow, David Frankfurter, Fritz Graf, Yuval Harari, Naomi Janowitz, Sarah Iles Johnston, Roy D. Kotansky, Arpad M. Nagy, Daniel Schwemer, Joseph E. Sanzo, Jacques van der Vliet, Andrew Wilburn. David Frankfurter holds the William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. He joined the faculty of B.U. in the fall of 2010. A scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions with specialties in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, magical texts, popular religion, and Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods, Frankfurter’s particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like the place of magic in religion, the relationship of religion and violence, the nature of Christianization, and the representation of evil in culture. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    40 mins
  • Sary Zananiri, "Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)

    Sary Zananiri, "Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
    Feb 12 2026
    This open access book offers the first in-depth appraisal of the photographic archive of Frank Scholten (1881–1942), a queer Dutch photographer and Catholic convert whose work in Palestine between 1921 and 1923 provides a remarkable lens on the intersecting dynamics of modernity, religion, colonialism, and visual culture. Drawing on over 26,000 photographs, it situates Scholten's work within transnational religious, colonial, and nationalist networks. Employing a relational methodology, Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine (I.B. Tauris, 2026) treats photography not merely as visual documentation but as a site of layered cultural encounters shaped by the movements of people, ideas, and ideologies. It interrogates biblical visuality, the performance of indigeneity, intercommunal relations, and the gendered politics of labour and nationalism.Through interdisciplinary engagement with visual culture, Middle East studies, and gender theory, this book considers how Scholten's positionality offers insights into both the granular details of Palestinian society and broader macro-historical shifts during a period of profound transition. Rather than framing Palestine as a biblical relic, Scholten's photographs reveal a socially and politically complex society under early British Mandate rule. Ultimately, this book positions Scholten's archive as a vital historical source for understanding the layered and contested narratives that have defined Palestine's modern history. Access the book here: here Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 hr and 15 mins