Podcasts about arab renaissance

20th February 2025Dr. Lex Takkenberg will spell out the basic facts about the Agency's mandate, history and work on behalf of Palestinian refugees. A Dutch National, he is Senior Advisor on the Question of Palestine at ARDD, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, in Amman. From 1989 until 2019, he worked in various field and headquarters positions with UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, most recently at its Amman headquarters as the agency's first Chief Ethics Officer. He was previously UNRWA's General Counsel, Director of Operations, and (Deputy) Field Director in Gaza and Syria. Before joining UNRWA, he was the Legal Officer of the Dutch Refugee Council, from 1983 until 1989. A law graduate from the University of Amsterdam, where he also worked as an Academic Assistant from 1987-1989, he obtained a Doctorate in International Law from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1997 after having successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law. Oxford University Press (OUP) published a commercial edition of the dissertation in 1998; an integral Arabic translation was published by the Institute for Palestine Studies in 2003. A new version of the book – co-authored with Francesca Albanese – was published, also with OUP, in 2020.

Can Europe change the course of Israel's war on Gaza? A Dutch advisory body has accused its government of doing too little and says it must work with other European countries to prevent a larger conflict. But with the U.S. being a main player, what leverage, if any, does Europe have? James Moran, Former European Union Ambassador to Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen Emmanuel Dupuy, President of the Institute of European Perspective and Security Lek Takkenberg, Senior Adviser on the Question of Palestine Programme at the Arab Renaissance for Democracy & Development think tank Host: Cyril Vanier Connect with us:@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes!

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a Japanese grassroots movement working to eliminate nuclear weapons. It's made up of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The group's leader says he felt people helping Palestinians in Gaza deserved to win instead. So, what's behind the Nobel Committee's decision? In this episode: Asmund Aukrust, Member of Parliament, Norway's Labour Party.  Lex Takkenberg, Senior Advisor, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development.   Henrik Urdal, Director, Peace Research Institute Oslo. Host: Tom McRae Connect with us:@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes!

En in Londen wordt een wereldrecord verbroken! (00:30) UNRWA moet hulp stoppen in hongerend Gaza De VN-organisatie voor Palestijnse vluchtelingen UNRWA mag geen hulp meer verlenen in het noorden van Gaza. Volgens Israël is de organisatie een dekmantel voor Hamas. Nederland heeft zijn hulp aan UNRWA sinds eind januari stopgezet. Lex Takkenberg is Senior Advisor bij de Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development en werkte 30 jaar lang bij UNRWA, en is vandaag te gast bij ons. (13:02) Vlaamse politicus deed klusjes voor Beijing  Filip Dewinter, kopstuk van de rechts-radicale partij Vlaams Belang heeft jarenlang gewerkt voor een organisatie van de Chinese Communistische Partij, blijkt uit onderzoek van het Vlaamse tijdschrift HUMO. De politicus kreeg duizenden euro's van de zogeheten China Association for International Friendly Contact, in ruil daarvoor ging hij op buitenlandse reisjes, organiseerde hij lunchafspraken met Europese politici en sprak hij af met de bekende Chinese spion Changchun Shao. Wat zijn de gevolgen van deze onthulling voor Dewinter? En wat betekent dit voor Vlaams Belang in aanloop naar belangrijke verkiezingen later dit jaar? Te gast is Politicoloog en België-kenner Kemal Rijken. (21:17) Buitenland Uitgelicht: Verenigd Koninkrijk Zondag 21 april is het weer zo ver: de grote Marathon van Londen, waaraan jaarlijks 50.000 mensen meedoen. Dit jaar gebeurt daar iets unieks: er wordt een Wereldrecord verbroken. Anne Saenen praat ons bij.  Presentatie: Sophie Derkzen

This week's show features stories from NHK Japan, Radio Deutsche-Welle, and France 24. http://youthspeaksout.net/swr231117.mp3   (29:00)        From JAPAN- President Biden met with President Xi Jinping at the APEC conference in San Francisco, agreeing to keeping lines of communication open, start discussions on AI, and to crack down on the trade in Fentanyl- Biden added that the US is committed to the One China policy, Xi told Biden to stop arming Taiwan. Iran dismissed allegations of involvement in attacks on the US military stationed in Syria and Iraq. The Washington Post reported that the Ukrainian military played a key role in blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline last year.        From GERMANY-  An interview with Omer Bartov, professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. Omer discusses what genocide is, and whether the world is witnessing the first stages of genocide and crimes against humanity on the part of the IDF and Hamas fighters now. He also rejects the notion that criticizing or protesting against the Israeli government is a form of anti-semitism.        From FRANCE- An edition of Perspective, with Dutch citizen Dr. Lex Takkenberg, the senior advisor on the Question of Palestine at the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development. He talks about the protection hospitals are supposed to receive under international law. He says there is no credible evidence that the hospitals in Gaza have been used as military headquarters for Hamas. And that the purpose of the Israeli attacks on their hospitals is to cause panic and in effect a forced displacement of 1.5 million Palestinians. Then press reviews on the return to British politics of David Cameron, just appointed Foreign Secretary by PM Sunak, and the Israeli attacks on Palestinian hospitals. Available in 3 forms- (new) HIGHEST QUALITY (160kb)(33MB), broadcast quality (13MB), and quickdownload or streaming form (6MB) (28:59) Links at outfarpress.com/shortwave.shtml PODCAST!!!- https://feed.podbean.com/outFarpress/feed.xml  (160kb Highest Quality) Website Page- 

Israeli soldiers stormed Gaza's largest hospital on Wednesday, targeting what they believe is a major Hamas command centre located beneath the hospital complex. But compelling evidence that Hamas fighters are carrying out operations from medical facilities in Gaza remains scarce, according to Lex Takkenberg, Senior Advisor on the Question of Palestine at the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development based in Amman.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese*, will provide a virtual briefing on key findings and conclusions of her report to the General Assembly on the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory. This webinar is co-organized by the Foreign Press Association and the Centre for United Nations Studies, University of Buckingham. The Special Rapporteur's report on the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people is now publicly available in all the official languages on the UN Official Documentation System. Francesca Albanese was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 by the Human Rights Council at its 49th session in March 2022 and has taken up her function as of 1 May 2022. Ms. Albanese is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, as well as a Senior Advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement for a think-tank, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD). She has widely published on the legal situation in Israel and the State of Palestine and regularly teaches and lectures on international law and forced displacement at universities in Europe and the Arab region. Ms. Albanese has also worked as a human rights expert for the United Nations, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees. - This briefing is made possible by the Foreign Press Foundation. Donate at foreignpressassociation.org/ways-to-support.html Become a member of the Foreign Press Association at foreignpressassociation.org/join-the-association1.html Follow us on social media: twitter.com/fpanewsusa facebook.com/fpanewyork instagram.com/fpanewyork youtube.com/c/foreignpressassociationusa linkedin.com/in/fpausa/

Ahmed El Shamsy is an associate professor of Islamic thought at the University of Chicago. As part of a new series from New Lines exploring big ideas from history, El Shamsy joins culture editor Lydia Wilson to talk about how the Middle East changed in the age of printing. They discuss how the “European book drain” induced the Arab world's adoption of the printing press, why printing enabled a revival of Islamic classical tradition, and how that revival led to the creation of the modern Middle East. Produced by Joshua Martin

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh UP, 2020) offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syria Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today. Byung Ho Choi and Sun Yong Lee are Ph.D. students in the Department of History & Ecumenics, focusing on World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh UP, 2020) offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syria Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today. Byung Ho Choi and Sun Yong Lee are Ph.D. students in the Department of History & Ecumenics, focusing on World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh UP, 2020) offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syria Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today. Byung Ho Choi and Sun Yong Lee are Ph.D. students in the Department of History & Ecumenics, focusing on World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.  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

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh UP, 2020) offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syria Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today. Byung Ho Choi and Sun Yong Lee are Ph.D. students in the Department of History & Ecumenics, focusing on World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. Deanna Ferree Womack's book Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh UP, 2020) offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915. Drawing on rare Arabic publications, it challenges historiography that focuses on Western male actors. Instead it shows that Syrian Protestant women and men were agents of their own history who sought the salvation of Syria while adapting and challenging missionary teachings. These pioneers established a critical link between evangelical religiosity and the socio-cultural currents of the Nahda, making possible the literary and educational achievements of the American Syria Mission and transforming Syrian society in ways that still endure today. Byung Ho Choi and Sun Yong Lee are Ph.D. students in the Department of History & Ecumenics, focusing on World Christianity and history of religions at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Arab American Center for Culture and Arts present Arab Identity Part 1 - Episode 4 - Arab Awakening (AlNahda) Part 1 of 2 with Guest Dr. Tareq A. Ramadan. AlNahda, also referred to as the Arab Renaissance or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire, notably in Egypt, ...

Stephen Sheehi (Michigan, MA, PhD, Temple, BA; pronouns he/his/his) is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies and Professor of Arab Studies at the College of William and Mary. He is a joint appointment in the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and a core faculty member of the Asian & Pacific-Islander American Studies Program (APIA): https://stephensheehi.com Prof. Sheehi is also Founding Faculty Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project at William and Mary, which seeks to validate, elevate and learn from knowledge practices, and creative expressions of communities of color, natives and displaced peoples and marginalized identities: https://www.wm.edu/sites/dhp/ Prof. Sheehi’s work examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the Middle East, with a special emphasis on the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-‘arabiyah). His research and written commentaries have also examined photography, psychoanalysis, minorities in the Middle East, Islamophobia in the United States and contemporary issues of the Middle East and North America. In addition to Middle Eastern studies and Islamophobia, he has had a life-time engagement with Arab and Muslim American issues, globalization and economic equity, transformative education, and social justice. He remains interested in and a perennial student of decolonial theory and praxis, psychoanalysis, and cultural and poststructural theory. Prof. Sheehi is the author of three books: The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016); Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims (Clarity Press, 2011), which has been translated into Arabic as al-Islamofobia: al-Hamlah al-idiulujiyah dud al-Muslimin translation by Fatimah Nasr (Cairo: Dar al-Sutour, 2012); and Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (University Press of Florida, 2004). Dr. Sheehi discusses the 40th Annual Spring Meeting of Division 39 – Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA), March 18-21, 2020, New York City: https://division39springmeeting.net The conference Psychoanalysis to Come: Community and Culture, July 24-26, 2020, Copenhagen is also discussed: http://dasunbehagen.org/event/du-international-conference-psychoanalysis-come-community-culture/ Rendering Unconscious Podcast is hosted by psychoanalyst Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, who interviews psychoanalysts, psychologists, scholars, creative arts therapists, writers, poets, philosophers, artists & other intellectuals about their process, world events, the current state of mental health care, politics, culture, the arts & more. Episodes are also created from lectures given at various international conferences. Please support the podcast at: https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl Rendering Unconscious is also a book! Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics and Poetry (Trapart, 2019): https://store.trapart.net/details/00000 Rendering Unconscious Podcast can be found at: Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud Please visit the About page for links to all of these sites: http://www.renderingunconscious.org/about/ For more, please visit the following websites: http://www.renderingunconscious.org http://www.drvanessasinclair.net https://store.trapart.net https://division39springmeeting.net The track at the end of the episode is “Knight of Swords” from the album "The Chapel is Empty". Words by Vanessa Sinclair. Music by Akoustik Timbre Frekuency. Available from Trapart Editions and Highbrow-Lowlife: https://store.trapart.net/details/00062 Photo of Dr. Stephen Sheehi

Christian mission cannot be about converting others to Western culture; rather, it must be about living according to the Christian faith. In this episode, Deanna Ferree Womack uses encounters between American missionaries and Arab residents of Ottoman Syria to explain that mutually transformative mission is necessary both for the future church and for healthy interreligious dialogue.The Distillery is a podcast that explores the essential ingredients of book and research projects with experts in their field of study. Learn what motivates their work and why it matters for Christian theology and ministry.    Guest: Deanna Ferree WomackSubscribeApple Podcasts   |   Google Play   |   Stitcher 

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social lives of Middle Eastern societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Sheehi’s The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) tells that story, focusing primarily on portraiture and those that took portraits. Sheehi examines the formalism of portraits in relation to changing notions of class, questioning whether or not portrait photography were creating new forms of sociability or vice versa. But photography is also another way Arab modernity was in relation to Ottomanism: The Arab Imago looks at how portrait studios developed in Istanbul and beyond, often operated by Armenian and Greek Orthodox photographers. The Arab Imago integrates photography, modernity, and the banal to give us one of the first histories of photography in the Middle East. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies and Director of the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) at the College of William and Mary. He is Professor of Arabic Studies as well, and holds a joint appointment in AMES and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He did his doctorate at Michigan. His work largely examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-arabiyah). Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social lives of Middle Eastern societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Sheehi’s The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) tells that story, focusing primarily on portraiture and those that took portraits. Sheehi examines the formalism of portraits in relation to changing notions of class, questioning whether or not portrait photography were creating new forms of sociability or vice versa. But photography is also another way Arab modernity was in relation to Ottomanism: The Arab Imago looks at how portrait studios developed in Istanbul and beyond, often operated by Armenian and Greek Orthodox photographers. The Arab Imago integrates photography, modernity, and the banal to give us one of the first histories of photography in the Middle East. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies and Director of the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) at the College of William and Mary. He is Professor of Arabic Studies as well, and holds a joint appointment in AMES and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He did his doctorate at Michigan. His work largely examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-arabiyah). Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social lives of Middle Eastern societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Sheehi’s The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) tells that story, focusing primarily on portraiture and those that took portraits. Sheehi examines the formalism of portraits in relation to changing notions of class, questioning whether or not portrait photography were creating new forms of sociability or vice versa. But photography is also another way Arab modernity was in relation to Ottomanism: The Arab Imago looks at how portrait studios developed in Istanbul and beyond, often operated by Armenian and Greek Orthodox photographers. The Arab Imago integrates photography, modernity, and the banal to give us one of the first histories of photography in the Middle East. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies and Director of the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) at the College of William and Mary. He is Professor of Arabic Studies as well, and holds a joint appointment in AMES and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He did his doctorate at Michigan. His work largely examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-arabiyah). Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social lives of Middle Eastern societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Sheehi’s The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) tells that story, focusing primarily on portraiture and those that took portraits. Sheehi examines the formalism of portraits in relation to changing notions of class, questioning whether or not portrait photography were creating new forms of sociability or vice versa. But photography is also another way Arab modernity was in relation to Ottomanism: The Arab Imago looks at how portrait studios developed in Istanbul and beyond, often operated by Armenian and Greek Orthodox photographers. The Arab Imago integrates photography, modernity, and the banal to give us one of the first histories of photography in the Middle East. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies and Director of the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) at the College of William and Mary. He is Professor of Arabic Studies as well, and holds a joint appointment in AMES and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He did his doctorate at Michigan. His work largely examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-arabiyah). Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social lives of Middle Eastern societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Sheehi’s The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) tells that story, focusing primarily on portraiture and those that took portraits. Sheehi examines the formalism of portraits in relation to changing notions of class, questioning whether or not portrait photography were creating new forms of sociability or vice versa. But photography is also another way Arab modernity was in relation to Ottomanism: The Arab Imago looks at how portrait studios developed in Istanbul and beyond, often operated by Armenian and Greek Orthodox photographers. The Arab Imago integrates photography, modernity, and the banal to give us one of the first histories of photography in the Middle East. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies and Director of the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) at the College of William and Mary. He is Professor of Arabic Studies as well, and holds a joint appointment in AMES and the Arabic Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He did his doctorate at Michigan. His work largely examines cultural, intellectual, art history, and the political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-arabiyah). Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens on the shores of Lesvos, Chios, Kos, Samos, and other islands in Greece remains mostly a policy discussion. For a few who have had the complicated position of seeing it, feeling it, and standing alongside people risking life and forsaking home—even for a short while— the danger of relegating issues this big, this crucial, to policymakers who have not seen with their own eyes highlights the gravity of the situation and raises questions far beyond the realm of policy. Immigration and migration—often a footnote in election cycles—is raising questions of what it means to empathize, what it means to be part of both a nation state and the human race. How do we define “us” and “them”? How do we control fear of the unknown and unknowable, and not be controlled by it? How does the language we use to define “crises” affect our response to them? This discussion, cover issue both practical and abstract, microcosmic and meta—in an attempt to trace how and why the “migrant” crisis has become a daunting threat to the European project and the global order. Tracing the issue from its impetuses in the Middle East, and moving deeper to questions of history, empathy, and human morality, they don’t provide any answers in the discussion, but frankly and honestly present the issue for digestion. This is a conversation recorded at the Tällberg Workshop on Lesvos, March 17-19 in Greece, on the underlying cause and potential long-term consequences of Europe’s refugee crisis, Clash of Civilizations? A conversation with: -Maria del Mar Logrono Narbono, Programs Advisor, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD)-Legal Aid, Jordan -Michael Niconchuk, MSc Candidate, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, US-UK Fulbright Award Recipient, UK. The conversation is moderated by Nora Bateson, Filmmaker, writer, educator. lecturer President of the International Bateson Institute, and Board Member, Tällberg Foundation, Sweden & USA