“Houses are murdered just as their inhabitants are killed and the memories of things are slaughtered, wood, stones, glass, iron, mortar – scattered like human limbs. And cotton silk, linen, notebooks, books…
From Santiago to São Paulo, Bogotá to Buenos Aires, some of the world’s largest demonstrations in support of Gaza have taken place thousands of kilometres from Palestine. Latin American governments, activists, and…
‘What matters are the needs which art answers.’ – John Berger Fathi Ghaben (1947-2024) was a Palestinian painter whose work played a dual role: at once witness to the struggles of his…
Spring, 1951. A young boy called Edward was expelled from Victoria College, a prestigious English boarding school in Alexandria, for troublemaking. Whatever commotion led to his expulsion, it could not have been…
Defining Highly Repressive Environments Davenport defines political repression as the state’s use of physical sanctions to deter ‘specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions.’[1] This helps…
For decades, the Assad dynasty ruled Syria with an iron fist, first under Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar. The uprising of 2011 was crushed with brutal force, leaving more than…
The qaṣīdah poet is not simply a neutral observer—he is a character whose presence is felt. This character is not a reflection of his ‘authentic’ self in the modern romantic sense, but…
Prior to the turn of the century among both near-Eastern and Western scholars, the status quo narrative of Mongol conquest, expansion, and rule of Eurasia from the 13th to 15th centuries gives…
“يا للغرابة. يا للسخرية. الإنسان لمجرد أنه خلق عند خط الاستواء، بعض المجانين يعتبرونه عبدا وبعضهم يعتبرونه إلها.” “How strange! How ironic! Just because a man has been created on the Equator…
As an Arab, it’s a complete toss up whether you end up spawning as a Levantine Arab in war-torn Palestine, or a Gulf Arab living a life in London so lavish that…
Can a writer give voice to the silenced without speaking over them? This question lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding Kamel Daoud’s Houris (2024), a brutal yet beautiful novel that…
Dahieh, in south Beirut, seems a typical, poor neighbourhood. It’s crowded and difficult to navigate. It’s mostly Shīʿī. It’s dotted with billboards showing pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, Ḥasan Naṣrallāh and other Shīʿī…
It is no secret that the history of Arabic studies at Oxford is inseparable from British imperialism. Our department’s name change in 20221 did not paint over its orientalist past – nor…
Once a bastion of free speech, it is incontestable that Tunisia is regressing. From the small coastal town of Sidi Bouzid emerged the Arab Spring, the series of political uprisings and rebellions…
Tapestry of Life And if anguish is what provides inspiration, let it be No further and no clearer the whole truth you will see If you pull at the threads at the…
The Oxford Arabist 