152 episodes listed below
Scholarship on the Middle East, heard in conversation.
New Books in Middle Eastern Studies is an interview feed built around academic books and Middle Eastern questions. Its recent range moves from Gulf food systems and Louvre Abu Dhabi politics to Islamic history, Iran, oil, early cinema, and medieval Jewish history.
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New Books in Middle Eastern Studies collects extended author conversations around scholarship on the Middle East, Islam, Jewish history, political economy, culture, and historical method. Its center of gravity is the book interview. The show typically begins by placing a new title and its author in view, then works outward toward the research problem behind it. Recent episodes show how broad that frame can be. Christian Henderson's "Monarchies of Extraction" brings Gulf states into conversation with agriculture, trade, land investment, food security, and ecological questions. Beth Derderian's "Art Capital" shifts the lens to Louvre Abu Dhabi, museum projects, tourism, citizen training, diplomatic relationships, exhibitions, and the politics of knowledge-making. Michael Allan's "Cinema before the World" follows early film through the Lumiere Brothers, Arabic-language description, animated views, and the problem of narrating cinema as a global form. Other entries move through oil and the Strait of Hormuz, Iran under attack, Islamic Revolution, Orientalism, global histories of Islam, and slavery in medieval Egypt. The show is strongest when a concept gets time to breathe. Food security is not treated only as a policy phrase; it becomes a way to discuss trade, scarcity, technology, and political silence. Museum building is not only architecture; it is tied to national aspiration, jobs, training, tourism, and diplomacy. The language can be specialist. That is part of the appeal. Instead of smoothing every edge for casual consumption, the conversations keep the texture of academic argument: archives, categories, historiography, translation, capitalism, ontology, and empire can all remain in play. The feed also carries network material and occasional ads, so openings may not always move straight into the interview. Once the conversation settles, the attraction is clear. This is a place where recently published scholarship becomes a map of historical and contemporary questions across the region.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants author-led scholarship on Middle Eastern history, politics, religion, culture, and political economy. Best for someone comfortable with academic language and patient contextual setup.
What sets it apart: Its strength is the book as anchor: each conversation uses a specific scholarly work to reach larger questions without floating away from research. Similar current-affairs shows may move faster, but this feed offers denser historical and conceptual grounding.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-stu…
A struck match explains early cinema, if you like your history with the mechanism still visible.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, politically sharp look at how Gulf food security rests on land, trade, and scarcity elsewhere.
Christian Henderson frames Monarchies of Extraction as a study of how Gulf states sit inside the global food system, drawing on earlier work on Gulf investment in Egyptian agriculture.
A reflective episode on how Orientalism shapes the categories through which Iran's war becomes legible.
Radio Reorient approaches the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran as a way into a broader question: which political futures become imaginable, and which are ruled out before they can be named?
A museum becomes a study in economic strategy, diplomacy, and the politics of presenting the Emirates to the world.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi is framed here as a political project as much as an architectural one. The discussion ties the museum's creation to the UAE government's push to diversify beyond oil, train and employ Emiratis in museum work, draw tourists, and strengthen diplomatic ties…
A careful conversation about how Lumiere images complicate national film histories.
Cinema Before the World starts from a focused question: what the Lumiere brothers' early moving images reveal when viewed through places such as Algeria, Egypt, and Palestine.
A grounded discussion of why oil still shapes markets, politics, and power in the Gulf.
Oil journalism turns into a clear lesson in how a regional crisis travels through the energy system: first through a futures benchmark, then into physical crude, jet fuel, and the bargaining power of producers.
Medieval power, read with institutional gravity.
European conflict with context and consequence.
Medieval Iceland, read closely and argued warmly.
Medieval Iberia, one consequence at a time.
Medieval history, criminally examined.
Empires, sieges, and final stands.
Donna Stein discusses her memoir about collecting, rejecting, and rediscovering modern art in an ancient empire.
["Christian Henderson\u2019s \"Monarchies of Extraction\" argues that the Gulf states function as \"inverted farms,\" with imported food, external land, and ecological costs at the center of Gulf capitalism.
Radio ReOrient opens its State of the Ummah series on the 30th day of the war against Iran and asks what the conflict signals beyond headlines.
New Books Network host Joel Mende speaks with Beth Derderian about Art Capital: Museum Politics and the Making of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
On New Books in Middle Eastern Studies, Turo Mende speaks with Michael Allen about Cinema Before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumiere Brothers, a 2026 Fordham University Press book that treats the 5-kilogram cinematograph as a portable recorder and projector.
New Books Network's American Beyond uses Paul Starobin and Stanley Reed to frame the Iran-Gulf crisis around one fact: oil still makes up about a third of world energy, and the Persian Gulf produces around a quarter of global oil.
An interview with Professor James McDougall about his new book 'Worlds of Islam: A Global History' and its origins.
An interview with Craig Perry about his book 'Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History' published by Princeton University Press in 2026.
Author Vali Nasr discusses Iran's political history and current geopolitical challenges in an interview on the NewBooks Network.
An interview with David Frankfurter about the Brill Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, exploring how scholars approach the study of magic and its cultural significance.