One scholar, one book, across Iran, Afghanistan and the Gulf.
Host Belle Cheves talks with scholars, historians and anthropologists among them, about their books on Iran, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, from climate history to Sufi lodges to pearl divers. The questions come from close reading, so each conversation stays on sources, evidence and argument.
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The Ajam Media Collective Podcast works like a seminar organized around one scholarly book at a time. Host Belle Cheves brings in the author, and the conversation stays close to the page: where the evidence comes from, and which assumptions the argument pushes against. Iran sits at the center. Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf fall within range too. The subjects vary more than the format does. In 'Ajam Podcast #47: Towards An Environmental History of Modern Iran', James Gustafson of Indiana State University talks about his environmental history of Iran from the Safavids to the rise of Reza Khan. He also describes a workaround for a country short on old-growth trees: using tree-ring correlations from Jordan and Turkey to say something about climate on the Iranian plateau. Annika Schmieding, a cultural anthropologist, describes Sufi communities in Afghanistan that set up kitchens for the poor, sheltered long-distance travelers in lodges and mediated local disputes. With Arang Keshavarzian, Cheves takes up the pearling economy his book describes, where divers were often subservient to the boat captains they worked for, and ties that history to current debates over labor on the megacity projects of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Several conversations turn on the media that carry history and belief: photographs, radio, even currency. Bita Baglizadeh explains why photography became central to her work on enslavement and erasure in Iran, arguing that the language of enslavement was spatial and visual as much as written. Niloufar Haeri of Johns Hopkins describes radio in 1940s Iran carrying sung poetry to people who never owned a book of Hafez. Pouya Alamagam traces how Palestinian liberation became part of the ideology of the Islamists who consolidated power after the revolution, visible in street names, painted buildings, the currency and Jerusalem Day. Cheves is an attentive, generous reader. Passages get quoted back to their authors. The praise is specific, and more than once the host mentions assigning a book in class. One conversation also reunites the host with a former master's thesis advisor. Where to begin depends on the question a listener brings. Race and slavery in Iran have an obvious entry point in 'Ajam Podcast #43: Histories of Blackness, Enslavement, and Erasure in Iran', while religion in everyday life runs through the Sufi and poetry conversations. Most episodes end by sending listeners to the book itself, so the feed doubles as an annotated reading list.
Made for: Suits a listener who reads, or means to read, academic history and anthropology about Iran and its neighbors, and wants to hear authors explain their sources, methods and arguments in conversation.
What sets it apart: Each conversation is built on a close reading of one scholarly book, with passages quoted back to the author. That keeps the talk on the evidence behind each argument: tree-ring data, photographs, poetry sung over the radio.
A podcast series exploring the "Ajam" world, from Anatolia to South Asia and beyond. From the editors and contributors at Ajam Media Collective.
Tree rings in Turkey offer clues to Iran's climate; your map of its history gets bigger.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful conversation that lets climate and landscape broaden the history of modern Iran.
Modern Iran comes into focus through climate, trees, labor, revolution, empire, and the built environment, rather than through rulers alone. Belle Cheves speaks with Dr.
A focused discussion of Sufi civilities, women as religious leaders, and the social work sustaining Afghan communities.
Belle Cheves's conversation with Dr. Annika Schmieding opens Sufi Civilities through the daily work of urban Sufi communities in Afghanistan. Schmieding traces how kitchens for the poor, respite for long-distance travelers, dispute mediation, religious education, and community…
A relational history of the Gulf connects pearling labor, shared space, and unequal lives across time.
Arang Keshavarzian's conversation with Belle Cheves treats the Persian Gulf less as a bounded map and more as a web of relationships. Drawing on Making Space for the Gulf, he shows how a relational sense of place can hold overlapping histories, long durations, and unequal…
A thoughtful conversation on poetry as a shared path into prayer, faith, and Iranian cultural memory.
The Ajam Podcast's conversation with Niloufar Haeri, Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, considers how poetry helps shape women's religious lives in Iran.
A historian examines how language, space, and photography shaped the history and erasure of enslavement in Iran.
Blackness in Iran comes into view through archives that often pushed enslaved people to the margins, and through photographs that helped shape how enslavement was seen. Belle Cheves speaks with Dr.
Overlooked lives, read from the sources, talked through warmly.
History, remembered by witnesses.
Pop culture with the historical wiring exposed.
Ajam Media Collective Podcast episode 47 follows Dr.
Ajam Podcast #46, "Sufi Communities in Afghanistan," pairs Belle Cheves with Dr.
["Ajam Podcast #45 features Belle Cheves and Arang Keshavarzian discussing his April 2024 book, Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East.", "Keshavarzian opens with his 2017 plan to teach at NYU Abu Dhabi, where his residency visa security clearance was denied without explanation.", "He uses that denial to argue that Gulf borders work like selective membranes and that the region should be understood beyond a GCC-only map.", "The conversation moves through pearling labor, kinship, the bachelor label, British treaties, Qish, Jabal Ali, and the longer history of free trade zones and neoliberalism."]
["Ajam Podcast #44, \"Ajam Podcast #44: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Modern Iran,\" centers on Niloufar Haeri's study of women, namaz, and poetry in Iran.", "Belle Cheeves speaks with Haeri, a professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, about how one relative's calm remark that her prayers \"went very well\" changed Haeri's fieldwork.", "Haeri traces how poetry nights, Quran classes, dua books, Hafez, Rumi, and prayer practices in Persian shaped the religious lives of women in their 60s and 70s.", "She ends by linking those self-education circles to the Women Life Freedom movement, where many men also joined protests."]
Belle Cheves and Dr.
Belle Cheves interviews Dr.
Belle Cheeves interviews Golnar Nikpour, Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth, about her 2024 book The Incarcerated Modern, which traces Iran's prison system from late-Qajar confinement to a heavily carceral modern state.
Belle Cheves interviews Seema Golastaneh, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, about her 2023 book Unknowing and the Everyday, Sufism and Knowledge in Iran.
Belle Cheeves interviews Yale comparative-literature professor Sam Hodgkin about his 2023 book Persianate Verse and the Poetics of Eastern Internationalism.
Belle Cheves interviews Pamela Karimi, Professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, about her 2022 book Alternative Iran, Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice.
An interview with Professor Manijeh Nasarbadi about the Confederation of Iranian Students in the U.S.
An interview with sociologist Neda Maghouleh about her book on Iranian Americans and the politics of race.
An interview with sociologist Neda Maghouleh about her book on Iranian Americans and the politics of race.
An interview with a sociologist about the history and role of the social welfare state in Iran.
An interview with urban planners discussing the current urban development challenges and transitions in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Hosts celebrate their podcast launch on iTunes and introduce the format: discussing an article, guest interview, and curated music mix.