Hervé Koubi spoke to us in this special collaboration episode with NYUAD about What The Day Owes To The Night, which tells the story of a young boy from Yasmina Khadra's novel through highly physical, stunningly fluid, gravity-defying piece that combines capoeira, martial arts, urban, and contemporary dance. Hervé Koubi is a dancer at the National Choreographic Center of Nantes Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarche then at the National Choreographic Center of Caen with Karine Saporta and the Th...
Oct 26, 2022•51 min•Ep. 264
Ghada Almuhanna talked about her work in storytelling, cultural preservation and cultural exchange. After graduating with a master of laws (LL.M.), Ghada spent several years working as a researcher within the security and political sector. Over time, she noticed the perceptions revolved around the Arabian Peninsular culture, and shifted my work towards media and public diplomacy to give a better perspective on the region’s rich heritage. Created by Mikey Muhanna , afikra Hosted by Tasneem Alsult...
Oct 25, 2022•59 min•Ep. 263
Nadia Kaabi-Linke talked about her work as a visual artist and her process for creating pieces and holding exhibitions. Nadia Kaabi-Linke was born in Tunis, Tunisia, in 1978, and raised in Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. She graduated from the University of Fine Arts, Tunis, in 1999, and earned a Ph.D. at Université Paris-Sorbonne, in 2008. Growing up between Tunis, Kyiv, and Dubai, and now residing in Berlin and Kyiv, Kaabi-Linke has a personal history of migration across cultures and bor...
Oct 23, 2022•56 min•Ep. 262
Reem Almenhali and Joanna Settle spoke to us in this special collaboration episode with NYUAD about their play, Al Raheel | Departure, which is about the depth and diversity of life as a woman in the UAE. Created and hosted by Mikey Muhanna , afikra Edited by: Ramzi Ramman Theme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/ About the afikra Conversations: Our long-form interview series features academics, arts, and media experts who are helping document and/or shape the history...
Oct 20, 2022•50 min•Ep. 261
After graduating from the School of Cinematic Arts at The University of Southern California, Bassel wrote and produced the OSCAR nominated and BAFTA winning film “Theeb.” His directorial debut, “The Alleys,” premiered at the Piazza Grande of the Locarno Film Festival before going on to play at the BFI London and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Bassel is in post-production with Chasing Dreams , a six-part sports docu-series he directed over 4 years, it follows five Syrian footballers who turn professio...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 260
Nadine performed three of her songs and spoke about her musical career. Nadine El Roubi is a Sudanese artist who grew up in Virginia, she hopes to expand the understanding of what it means, and looks like, to be Arab Muslim woman. She takes inspiration from icons like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and more. She debuted in 2018, with her first solo single “gr8ful”. She has performed in Sudan, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. She will be releasing her debut EP “Triplicity” in October 2022. Cr...
Oct 18, 2022•56 min•Ep. 259
Sahar Mustafah talked about her book "The Beauty of Your Face." The novel is about a Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter, it navigates a country growing ever more divided. The daughter of immigrants, Sahar Mustafah explores her Palestinian heritage in her writing. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Columbia College where she was a Follett Graduate Scholar. Mustafah is a Willow Books Grand Prize Winner for Code of The...
Oct 12, 2022•49 min•Ep. 258
Febe talked about her work involving food and history, including writing her book with Bogac Ergene of Halal Food: A History. Febe Armanios received her BA, MA, and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. Her research interests have focused on the history of Christian communities in the Middle East, particularly on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, on Muslim-Christian relations, as well as food history and media studies. She has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Fou...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 257
Kinan performed three musical pieces and spoke about his work as a composer. Originally from Damascus, Syria Kinan Azmeh is a soloist, composer, and improvisor. He has performed in places such as the Opera Bastille, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Damascus Opera House, and more. Kinan’s compositions include several works for solo, chamber, and orchestral music, as well as music for film, live illustration, and electronics. His resent works were commissioned by The New York Philharmonic, The Seattle S...
Oct 06, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 256
Danyel Reiche spoke about his research on the FIFA World Cup 2022 and his book, "Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change." Dr. Danyel Reiche is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) and an Associate Professor at Georgetown University Qatar where he leads a research initiative on the FIFA World Cup 2022. With Paul Brannagan, he published the book Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change, and edited t...
Oct 06, 2022•51 min•Ep. 255
Mohamed spoke about starting Egyptian Streets and how he created the platform. In 2012, Mohamed founded Egyptian Streets (ES Media) as a blog to share his ramblings about Egypt on. Two years later, Egyptian Streets was founded as a media company in Egypt and has become one of the region’s fastest growing media organizations and Egypt’s leading independent English media organization. In January 2018, Mohamed and co-founder Mostafa Amin were selected among Forbes Europe 30 Under 30 in Media & ...
Oct 03, 2022•55 min•Ep. 254
Meklit Hadero spoke about her career as a singer, this episode is in collaboration with the NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center. Meklit Hadero, known simply as Meklit, is an Ethiopian-born American singer and songwriter based in San Francisco, California. She is known for her soulful performing style, and for combining jazz, folk, and East African influences in her music. She sings in her native Amharic, and English. Meklit has released five records to date. The first was a self-produced and released eigh...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 253
Rahim performed 3 pieces from his work and spoke about his work as a composer and musician. Rahim AlHaj has performed all over the world, on tour with Munir Bashir, his teacher, as well as solo and with his string quartet project, including numerous concerts in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, and France and hundreds of concerts in the United States. He has released several recordings such as The Second Baghdad, Iraqi Music in a Time of War, and Friendship ...
Sep 27, 2022•57 min•Ep. 252
Shawkat M. Toorawa talked about his work in Arabic translation and literature. Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa is a Professor of Arabic at Yale, he received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught Arabic at Duke University, medieval French literature and Indian Ocean studies at the University of Mauritius, and Arabic and other literatures at Cornell University. His scholarly interests include: classical and medieval Arabic literature, especially the literary and write...
Sep 27, 2022•56 min•Ep. 251
مقابلة مع مصممة الأزياء ريم العدل تخبرنا فيها عن خبرتها في عالم التصميم للأفلام والتلفزيون مصممة أزياء مصرية حاصلة على العديد من الجوائز. لمع اسمها من خلال عدة أعمال مهمة ومميزة تدور أحداثها في أزمنة وبيئات متنوعة. وتمتلك ريم مسيرة تضم أكثر من 30 عمل بالتلفزيون والسينما والمسرح. ومن أبرزهم مسلسلات سجن النسا، واحة الغروب، في كل أسبوع يوم جمعة، وأفلام نوَّارة، اشتباك، شيخ جاكسون، الضيف، أبو صدّام، ومسرحية كوكو شانيل. أحدث أعمالها مسلسلي بطلوع الروح ووش وضهر كما شاركت كاستشاري أزياء في مسلسل موون ن...
Sep 22, 2022•50 min•Ep. 250
In this Book Club, we talked to Sabrina Mahfouz about her book "These Bodies of Water." The novel is about imperialism, and the history of the Middle Eastern coastlines and waterways that were vital to the British Empire's hold. Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian writer, performer and educator. Her first short play, That Boy, was performed at the Soho Theatre in 2010 and won a Westminster Prize for New Playwrights. In 2011, she was Creative in Residence at The Hospital Club. In the same year,...
Sep 21, 2022•46 min•Ep. 249
Claudia Roden talked about her new cookbook MED as well as her other work, and the process behind writing them. Claudia Roden is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer with a special interest in the social, cultural and historical background of food. She is best known as the author of many cookbooks including A Book of Middle Eastern Food, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food and Arabesque. Besides her numerous cookery volumes, Roden has also worked as a journalist and a cooking show presenter ...
Sep 18, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 248
Ahd spoke about her film, "Sanctity." Ahd Kamel is an actress, filmmaker from Saudi Arabia. She is most well known for her starring role in “Wadjda” (2012) which is Saudi Arabia’s first feature film. She is multi-lingual and speaks English fluently. She launched her film career in 2005 with a string of internationally successful short films, all three of which have won festival awards. Kamel moved to New York City in 1998 to study law at Columbia University, then completed her BFA in Animation &...
Sep 15, 2022•50 min•Ep. 247
Gilbert Achcar spoke about his work as an academic and his recent book, "The People Want." Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese academic and writer. He is a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His research interests cover the Near East and North Africa, foreign policy of the United States, Globalization, Islam, and Islamic fundamentalism. He is also a Fellow at the International Institute for Research and...
Sep 14, 2022•49 min•Ep. 246
DJ Habibeats talked about how he grew his social media accounts and creating content. DJ Habibeats is a LA-based DJ/Producer and resident DJ for TikTok Radio on SiriusXM. Originally from the Bay Area, he has been DJing for over 12 years and has held residencies at nightclubs across San Francisco and Los Angeles. Habibeats has accrued over 1 million followers across TikTok and Instagram for his DJ content, innovative mashups, and music sample series. He has shared the stage with artists such as M...
Sep 09, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 245
Mostafa talked about his work as a professor and his published books such as, "The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz." Mostafa Minawi researches different forms of imperialism in the Middle East and Northeast Africa at the turn of the 20th century. He also investigate how global events and the internal crisis in the empire were refracted through the lived experience of Arab-Ottoman imperialists and their families, living in Istanbul through the turbule...
Sep 07, 2022•54 min•Ep. 244
Firas performed three songs, spoke about starting Last Floor Productions, and his work in movie/TV composition. Firas Abou Fakher is a Lebanese composer, producer, and writer. While attending the American University of Beirut (AUB), he co-founded Mashrou' Leila with Hamed Sinno, Haig Papazian and Carl Gerges and is the band's composer, guitarist, and keyboardist. He also co-founded Last Floor Productions with two longtime friends, writer and Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts screenwriting professor ...
Sep 05, 2022•59 min•Ep. 243
Oualid talked about his feature film debut, "1982." Oualid Mouaness is an award winning director, writer and producer. His work traverses narrative and documentary features, music films, music videos and commercials. He is a Sundance Fellow and completed his undergraduate studies in journalism and theatre in Beirut, and holds an MFA in film from the Florida State University college of Motion Picture Arts. His first feature film as director, 1982, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festi...
Sep 02, 2022•56 min•Ep. 242
Nasser Jaber talked about his service catering company, The Migrant Kitchen, and the story behind it. Originally from Ramallah, Nasser Jaber came to the United States as a university student in economics and finance. Working in restaurants to pay for his degree, Nasser soon found that his true passion was food, and that his talents would take him from waiting tables to training under the best chefs in New York City. Nasser broke into the New York food scene when he opened Mazeish, a Palestinian-...
Aug 30, 2022•53 min•Ep. 241
Heba Gowayed talked about her latest book “Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential.” Heba Gowayed is the Moorman-Simon Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Her research, which is global and comparative, examines how low-income people traverse social services, immigration laws, and their associated bureaucracies, while grappling with gender and racial inequalities. Her forthcoming book, Refuge , is an ethnography exploring the lives of Syrians seeking refuge in the United S...
Jun 28, 2022•57 min•Ep. 240
Shahd Alshammari talked about her work as a writer, academic, and researcher in the field of Gulf literature and disability studies. Dr Shahd Alshammari is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian author and academic. She is the author of Head Above Water (Neem Tree Press, 2022). Alshammari teaches literature and has written numerous stories and creative nonfiction. Her research areas include illness narratives and disability studies. She is Assistant Professor of English at the Gulf University for Science and Tec...
Jun 23, 2022•52 min•Ep. 239
Hisham Fageeh talked about his career as an actor, producer, writer & director of the Middle East Media Initiative (MEMI) at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Recently appointed as Director of the Middle East Media Initiative (MEMI) at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Hisham Fageeh is a Hijazi multi-hyphenate creative straddling both Western and Arab audiences. His work has been written about by The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, BBC, Variety, among others. In the Middle East, he’s...
Jun 22, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 238
Lynn Adib performed three musical pieces: Youmma, Taht El Ward & Autruche followed by a discussion. Born and raised in Damascus, Syria. Lynn Adib is a singer, composer who has been exploring Arabic music and improvisation through Jazz music that she discovered around the age if 19 after spending years in the Choir if Joy in and learning classical flute at the National Conservatory, both in her hometown. After moving to Paris in 2009 and since the release of her Debut Album « Youmma » in 2018...
Jun 18, 2022•58 min•Ep. 237
James Zogby talked about his work in the field of political and policy research within the Arab American community. James J. Zogby is the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community. He is also managing director of Zogby Research Services, which specializes in groundbreaking public opinion polling across the Arab world. Zogby is a lecturer and scholar in Midd...
Jun 17, 2022•56 min•Ep. 236
Raphael Cormack discussed his new book Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring 20's. Midnight in Cairo tells the thrilling story of Egypt’s interwar nightlife and entertainment industry through the lives of its pioneering women. Introducing an eccentric cast of characters, it brings to life a world of revolutionary ideas and provocative art – one which laid the foundations of Arab popular culture today. It is a story of modern Cairo as we have never heard it before. Created and hosted by...
Jun 12, 2022•58 min•Ep. 235
