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  • Radio ReOrient 14.1: State of the Ummah: “A War Against the Islamic Republic?”, hosted by Shehla Khan, with Mona Makinejadbanadaki and S. Sayyid.

    Radio ReOrient 14.1: State of the Ummah: “A War Against the Islamic Republic?”, hosted by Shehla Khan, with Mona Makinejadbanadaki and S. Sayyid.
    2026/04/10
    This is Radio ReOrient. Welcome to our 14th season of navigating the post-Western and connecting the Islamosphere. We begin this season with Radio ReOrient’ s occasional series The State of the Ummah. In this episode Shehla Khan, Mona Makinejadbanadaki and Salman Sayyid go beyond the headlines in trying to understand the narratives that shape the War Against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Developing concepts from Critical Muslim Studies, they situate the latest phase of hostilities in a broader historical, ideological and political context, one that conventional analyses, constrained by Orientalist and positivist framings, refuses to grasp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 分
  • Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)

    Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)
    2026/03/25
    How do people justify what others see as transgression? Taking that question to the Persian-Muslim and Latin-Christian worlds over the period 1200 to 1700, Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700(de Gruyter, 2023) shows that people in both these worlds invested considerable energy in worrying, debating, and writing about proscribed practices. It compares how people in the two worlds came to terms with the proscriptions of sodomy, idolatry, and usury. When historians speak of the gap between premodern practice and the legal theory of the time, they tend to ignore the myriad of justifications that filled this gap. Moreover, a focus on justification evens out many of the contrasts that have been alleged to exist between the two worlds, or the Muslim and Christian worlds more generally. The similarities outweigh the differences in the ways people came to terms with the various rules of divine law. The level of flexibility of the theologians and jurists in charge of divine law varied more over time and by topic than between the two worlds. Both worlds also saw the development of ever more sophisticated justifications. Amid the increasing complexity of justifications, a particular kind of reasoning emerged: that good outcomes are more important than upholding rules for their own sake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    58 分
  • Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

    Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr
    2026/03/12
    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
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    48 分
  • Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)

    Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)
    2026/01/26
    In the 1970s, American curator Donna Stein served as an art advisor to Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi, the Shahbanu of Iran. Together, Stein and Pahlavi generated an art market in Iran, as Stein encouraged Pahlavi’s patronage of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Today, the contemporary section of the Iranian National Collection―most of which continues to languish in storage―is considered one of the most significant collections of modern art outside of Europe and the United States. The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art (Skira, 2020) is a vivid account of Stein’s experience working on this storied intercultural initiative. In crafting her highly readable narrative, Stein cites a number of previously confidential documents, including private correspondence with artists and dealers. This text explores the relationship between two women united by their shared passion for the arts and the continued legacy of their partnership in today’s art world. Kirstin L. Ellsworth holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University and is Associate Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 分
  • Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)

    Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)
    2025/10/31
    The dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through literature. Contrary to the presumption that literary nationalism in the Global South emerged through contact with Europe alone, Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism (University of Texas Press, 2024) demonstrates how the cultural forms of Iran and Afghanistan as nation-states arose from their shared Persian heritage and cross-cultural exchange in the twentieth century. In this book, Aria Fani charts the individuals, institutions, and conversations that made this exchange possible, detailing the dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature. Fani illustrates how voluntary and state-funded associations of readers helped formulate and propagate "literature" as a recognizable notion, adapting and changing Persian concepts to fit this modern idea. Focusing on early twentieth-century periodicals with readers in Afghan and Iranian cities and their diaspora, Fani exposes how nationalism intensified—rather than severed—cultural contact among two Persian-speaking societies amidst the diverging and competing demands of their respective nation-states. This interconnected history was ultimately forgotten, shaping many of the cultural disputes between Iran and Afghanistan today. Aria Fani is an associate professor and director of Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. He serves as the current deputy editor of Iranian Studies and is a co-investigator of the Translation Studies Hub at UW. 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: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 分
  • Amir Moosavi, "Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War" (Stanford UP, 2025)

    Amir Moosavi, "Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War" (Stanford UP, 2025)
    2025/09/14
    Lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, the Iran-Iraq War was the longest conventional war fought between two states in the twentieth century. It marked a period that began just after a revolutionary government in Iran became an Islamic Republic and Saddam Hussein consolidated power in Iraq. It ended with both wartime governments still in power, borders unchanged, yet hundreds of thousands of people dead. Neither side emerged as a clear victor, but both sides would eventually claim victory in some form. Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War (Stanford UP, 2025) considers how Iraqi and Iranian writers have wrestled with representing the Iran-Iraq War and its legacy, from wartime to the present. It demonstrates how writers from both countries have transformed once militarized, officially sanctioned war literatures into literatures of mourning, and eventually, into vehicles of protest that presented powerful counternarratives to the official state narratives. In writing the first comparative study of the literary output of this war, Amir Moosavi presents a new paradigm for the study of modern Middle Eastern literatures. He brings Persian and Arabic fiction into conversation with debates on the political importance of cultural production across the Middle East and North Africa, and he puts an important new canon of works in conversation with comparative literary and cultural studies within the Global South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    29 分
  • Isabel Toral and Beatrice Gruendler, "An Unruly Classic: Kalīla and Dimna and Its Syriac, Arabic, and Early Persian Versions" (Brill, 2024)

    Isabel Toral and Beatrice Gruendler, "An Unruly Classic: Kalīla and Dimna and Its Syriac, Arabic, and Early Persian Versions" (Brill, 2024)
    2025/08/03
    The collection of wisdom fables known as Kalila and Dimna began its long literary life in Sanskrit more than two millennia ago, and was subsequently translated to numerous languages. But it is the Arabic version, adapted from Middle Persian by the eighth-century scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa, that has left the most substantial literary footprint. A foundational text of classical Arabic prose and the basis for translations into Hebrew, Syriac, Castilian, Latin, Persian, and more, versions of Kalila and Dimna exists in hundreds of manuscript copies held in libraries around the world. Kalila and Dimna is the focus of Isabel Toral and Beatrice Gruendler's new work An Unruly Classic: Kalīla and Dimna and Its Syriac, Arabic, and Early Persian Versions (Brill: 2024). In this collected volume, members of the Kalila and Dimna project discuss, from different perspectives, a core aspect of their work with this textual tradition: the study of variation and mutability. The aim is to shed light on Kalila and Dimna’s so-called mouvance and establish typologies of textual mobility and instability across linguistic traditions and historical periods, as well as to develop analytical tools to describe, classify, represent, and interpret these dynamics. As will be shown, the progressive digitalization of philology in the last decades has offered the unique opportunity of putting the concept of mouvance into practice. Contributors include Theodore S. Beers, Jan J. van Ginkel, Khouloud Khalfallah, Mahmoud Kozae, Rima Redwan, and Johannes Stephan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 5 分
  • Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022)

    Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022)
    2025/07/25
    Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export controls affect large numbers of companies and states across the globe. Some of these penalties target nonstate actors, such as Colombian drug cartels and Islamist terror groups; others apply to entire countries, including North Korea, Iran, and Russia. U.S. policy makers see sanctions as a low-cost tactic, but in reality these measures often fail to achieve their intended goals--and their potent side effects can even harm American interests. Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests (Columbia UP, 2022) explores the surprising ways sanctions affect multinational companies, governments, and ultimately millions of people around the world. Drawing on interviews with experts, policy makers, and people in sanctioned countries, Agathe Demarais examines the unintended consequences of the use of sanctions as a diplomatic weapon. The proliferation of sanctions spurs efforts to evade them, as states and firms seek ways to circumvent U.S. penalties. This is only part of the story. Sanctions also reshape relations between countries, pushing governments that are at odds with the U.S. closer to each other--or, increasingly, to Russia and China. Full of counterintuitive insights spanning a wide range of topics, from commodities markets in Russia to Iran's COVID response and China's cryptocurrency ambitions, Backfire reveals how sanctions are transforming geopolitics and the global economy--as well as diminishing U.S. influence. This insider's account is an eye-opening, accessible, and timely book that sheds light on the future of sanctions in an increasingly multipolar world. Mathias Fuelling is a doctoral candidate in History at Temple University, working on a political history of Czechoslovakia in the immediate post-WWII years. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bucephalus424 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 6 分