New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

David Frankfurter, a Boston University scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions and magical texts, discusses the Brill guide he edited. They explore how ancient cultures labeled ambiguous rituals, the range of texts and artifacts treated as magical, and material and social contexts that shape perceptions of ritual power. Short, clear, and provocative conversations about terminology, sources, and why magic still fascinates.

Sari Zananiri, scholar of visual culture and Middle East studies, discusses Frank Scholten’s vast Palestinian photo archive. She explores modernity, biblical visuality, and how Palestinians actively shaped tourist and pilgrimage imagery. The conversation highlights photography as a site of colonial, religious, and gendered encounters and the archive’s value for understanding Palestine’s layered modern history.

Margaret Litvin, Professor of Arabic literature and translator, co-translated Najati Sidqi’s memoir. She talks about bringing Sidqi’s secret life as a Palestinian communist into English. The conversation covers the collaborative class-to-book translation, choices about preserving silences and adding context, and the memoir’s political and pedagogical relevance today.

Yossef Rapoport, historian of the medieval Arabic-speaking Middle East and professor at Queen Mary University London, explains how rural peasants, land rights, taxation, religion, and clan networks reshaped identity across the region. He traces linguistic, social, and political shifts, the role of peasant revolts, and how Arabness was claimed, performed, and contested over centuries.

As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets.Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began.In War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2021), Gershom Gorenberg tells the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.Gershom Gorenberg is a columnist for the Washington Post and a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, as well as an Adjunct Faculty at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Donna Stein, a curator who advised Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi and helped build Tehran’s modern art collection. She recounts selecting major works by Kandinsky, Picasso, Giacometti and Rauschenberg. She describes life in 1970s Tehran, organizing exhibitions, navigating the Queen’s office, and the collection’s long storage and slow rediscovery.

Adam Bursi, scholarly author and editorial assistant who studies early Islamic material religion. He traces relics, tombs, and sacred objects across 8th–9th century texts. Short takes cover debates over prophetic traces, tensions with Jewish and Christian practices, relic theft stories, and how trees, minbars, and stones became focal points of devotion.

Zeynep (Zainab) Saleh, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Haverford College and author of Political Undesirables, studies migration, displacement, and citizenship law. She explores mass denaturalization in Iraq, tracing legal roots from 1924 nationality rules to expulsions of Iraqi Jews and Iraqis of Iranian origin. She discusses archival research, memoirs, and the politics of state rhetoric and belonging.

Sean Mathews, a Greek-American journalist with deep roots in Middle Eastern affairs, explores Greece's complex identity and historical ties to the Near East. He argues that Greece's true belonging extends beyond the Western narrative, influenced by Ottoman legacies and geopolitical shifts. Mathews discusses the impacts of demographics, Gulf investments, and highlights the significance of Greek communities in Egypt and Jerusalem. He also delves into Greece's evolving rivalry with Turkey and how alliances are reshaping regional dynamics.

Sheiba Kian Kaufman, an expert in Shakespeare and early modern English drama, dives into her new book exploring Persian influences in the genre. She discusses how English playwrights portrayed Persian monarchs as symbols of intercultural hospitality and cosmopolitan ideals. Kaufman highlights the concept of 'adab'—refinement and ethics—in shaping cultural representations and examines Persian characters in Shakespeare's works. She also reflects on how these themes foster discussions of tolerance and identity in early modern society.