Podcasts about arab left

Episode 103: Memoirs, Memory, and the History of the Tunisian Left In this podcast, Dr.Idriss Jebari contemplates the outpouring of memory from the former leftists of the Perspectives movement, following the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. In a series of published memoirs, the likes of Gilbert Naccache, Fethi Ben Haj Yahia and others take their readers from their experience of prison in the sixties and seventies, as well as their reflections on critical moments of Tunisia's political transition, particularly transitional justice and national reconciliation. Through these memoirs, Dr. Jebari explores how they could help write new histories for the Tunisian people: one that is plural and democratic. On the ten-year anniversary of the Revolution, after unprecedented transformations and the global pandemic, we are reminded of the fleeting nature of memory in light of the tragic passing of several figures from the Maghrib's past.  Dr. Idriss Jebari is Al Maktoum Assistant Professor in Middle East Studies at Trinity CollegeDublin. His work investigates the distinctiveness of the Maghribi critique of modernity in contemporary Arab intellectual and cultural history. He completed a doctorate on the history of the production of critical thought in Morocco and Tunisia at the University of Oxford on the intellectual projects of Moroccan thinker Abdallah Laroui and Tunisian thinker Hichem Djaït. He then held an Arab Council for Social Sciences postdoctoral fellowship at the American University of Beirut to study the dynamics of intellectual and cultural exchanges between the Maghrib and the Mashriq after 1967. He has published on the intellectual projects of several North African intellectual figures such as Abdelkebir Khatibi, Mohamed Abed al-Jabri and Malek Bennabi, and how the younger generations remember this intellectual heritage and the Arab Left. He is currently working on his first book manuscript that will address the critical societal debates that shaped North Africa's path today modernity in the sixties and seventies. This podcast was recorded between Tunis and Dublin on January 8, 2021, by the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT) and the Centre d'Études Maghrébines en Algérie (CEMA) and is part of the special podcast series, "The Ten-Year Anniversary of Tunisia's Revolution (January 14, 2021)." The podcast was introduced by Dr. Robert P. Parks, CEMA Director. We thank Yesser Jradi for his interpretation of "Narja3lk dima." A talented artist, Yesser is a painter, musician with interests in cinema and theatre. Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

Episode 94: The “Student Question” in Tunisia: Between the Attraction of Leftism and the Steamroll of Authoritarian Paternalism (1963-1979)   In this podcast, Dr. Idriss Jebari discusses the student question’s emergence in the context of the Parisian radical sixties and the importance of Maoist insights. Jebari examines the way Perspectives seized on the “student question” in its journal in relation to the state’s reforms in the education sector and its discourse on youth faced with contestation. Jebari explores how the repressive events of 1968 and 1973 were highly revealing of Bourguiba’s thinking on Tunisian youth and how Perspectives countered it by promoting students to leadership positions. This podcast ends by depicting the atmosphere in the wing of the Tunisian prison where both generations were simultaneously held in the 1970s, as described in certain memoirs, as yet another reason to speak of many iterations of Tunisian leftism in the postcolonial era, and as an entry point to start compiling a growing archive to shed light on this occulted episode of the country’s history and work toward national reconciliation. Dr. Jebari is Al Maktoum Assistant Professor in Middle East Studies at Trinity College Dublin. His work investigates the distinctiveness of the Maghribi critique of modernity in contemporary Arab intellectual and cultural history. He completed a doctorate on the history of the production of critical thought in Morocco and Tunisia at the University of Oxford on the intellectual projects of Moroccan thinker Abdallah Laroui and Tunisian thinker Hichem Djaït. He then held an ACSS postdoctoral fellowship at the American University of Beirut to study the dynamics of intellectual and cultural exchanges between the Maghrib and the Mashriq after 1967. He has published on the intellectual projects of several North African intellectual figures such as Abdelkebir Khatibi, Mohamed Abed al-Jabri and Malek Bennabi, and how the younger generations remember this intellectual heritage of the Arab Left. He is currently working on his first book manuscript that will address the critical societal debates that shaped North Africa’s path toward modernity in the sixties and seventies. This podcast is part of the Contemporary Thought series and was recorded on July 22, 2019 at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT). Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

Join Jamie Parker and James Robinson as we sit down with PhD candidate Sana Tannoury-Karam to talk about Arab Communists and the Arab Left in the interwar period through World War Two. We talked about Sana's journey from studying political science in Beirut to studying history in Boston. She touches on individuals in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq and the evolution of Communist Parties throughout the Arab world from organic local creativity to strict Stalinism. Sana argues for an "internationalist moment" in the interwar period, contrary of the historiography of the region being sectarian and divided. She recounts her research journeys and difficulties consulting resources in the Middle East, especially with her focus on Lebanon and women's movements with Communism. She also explores the tensions between labor and CPs, and the politics of global anti-fascism. Books mentioned: "Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon" by Elizabeth Thompson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1050974.Colonial_Citizens "Militant Women of a Fragile Nation" by Malek Abisaab https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9405372-militant-women-of-a-fragile-nation "Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948" by Zachary Lockman https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/522679.Comrades_and_Enemies "Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954" by Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/522681.Workers_on_the_Nile "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798 -1939" by Albert Hourani https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185611.Arabic_Thought_in_the_Liberal_Age_1798_1939 "Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterranean: Late 19th Century Until the 1960s" by Christoph Schumann https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7784825-liberal-thought-in-the-eastern-mediterranean "The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914" by Ilham Khuri-Makdisi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7133631-the-eastern-mediterranean-and-the-making-of-global-radicalism-1860-1914 "The “East” as a Category of Bolshevik Ideology and Comintern Administration: The Arab Section of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East" (article) by Masha Kirasirova https://muse.jhu.edu/article/650067 Picture from Sana's collection: Workers gathered for the first public celebration of May day in 1925 Beirut. Red flags and slogans of ‘workers of the world unite’. The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association. Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Dan Squizzero Theme Music: Kieran Legg

On this week's POMEPS Conversation Podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Sune Haugbølle. Haugbølle is an associate professor at Roskilde University, and much of his research focuses on Leftist movements in the Middle East. "Before the Arab uprisings, I had a sense for a long time that there's a real gap in the historiography of the modern Middle East. Leftists groups,"Haugbølle says, "Have really been understudied. There's a lot we don't know about them— and I think that lack of knowledge came from the notion that somehow the left had ceased to be important." "I'm trying to see what the historical memory of failures and trasitions of the Left in the last couple of decades means today for the Leftist activitists, militants, intellectuals today," says Haugbølle. "The history of the Arab Left is global." In today's world, Haugbølle argues, "The new Left is a fragmented field of smaller movements. It's by definition a vast array of influences." "Obviously the Middle East is not in the throes of the American homogeneity that it used to be years ago. And they're trying to find their feet in that." The Left must question of imperialism, especially with the conflict in Syria, says Haugbølle. "We re-conceptualize the struggle in this confused, post-revolutionary period that we're in. That comes for the fore in the question of: Syria. Do you see the Russian intervention as a sort of protection of a popular regime with legitimacy, a people's army that needs to be protected from America's attempt to smash it? Or do you see that equally as imperialism? Most of the international socialists have taken the line that the Russian intervention is also a form of imperialism. You get splits over that." "There's an intellectual history and a political history. There's so much we don't know. There's so many achieves people haven't looked at. Journals people haven't read yet," says Haugbølle.

On this week's POMEPS Conversation Podcast, Marc Lynch speaks with Sune Haugbølle. Haugbølle is an associate professor at Roskilde University, and much of his research focuses on Leftist movements in the Middle East. "Before the Arab uprisings, I had a sense for a long time that there's a real gap in the historiography of the modern Middle East. Leftists groups,"Haugbølle says, "Have really been understudied. There's a lot we don't know about them— and I think that lack of knowledge came from the notion that somehow the left had ceased to be important." "I'm trying to see what the historical memory of failures and trasitions of the Left in the last couple of decades means today for the Leftist activitists, militants, intellectuals today," says Haugbølle. "The history of the Arab Left is global." In today's world, Haugbølle argues, "The new Left is a fragmented field of smaller movements. It's by definition a vast array of influences." "Obviously the Middle East is not in the throes of the American homogeneity that it used to be years ago. And they're trying to find their feet in that." The Left must question of imperialism, especially with the conflict in Syria, says Haugbølle. "We re-conceptualize the struggle in this confused, post-revolutionary period that we're in. That comes for the fore in the question of: Syria. Do you see the Russian intervention as a sort of protection of a popular regime with legitimacy, a people's army that needs to be protected from America's attempt to smash it? Or do you see that equally as imperialism? Most of the international socialists have taken the line that the Russian intervention is also a form of imperialism. You get splits over that." "There's an intellectual history and a political history. There's so much we don't know. There's so many achieves people haven't looked at. Journals people haven't read yet," says Haugbølle.