Episode 21: Susann Kassem, Lara Deeb and Habib Battah

Episode 23: Ayça Alemdaroğlu

Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with Ayça Alemdaroğlu about her article, “The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP,” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/the-cumulative-capture-of-turkeys-universities-under-the-akp/] in our Spring 2026 issue, “Campus Politics–Palestine and the New University Order.” [https://www.merip.org/issue-318/] MERIP executive director James Ryan spoke with Alemdaroğlu about the efforts of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party to co-opt university administrations and contain campus dissent over the last 25 years. While attempting to coerce and repress the strongest and most outspoken voices on prestigious campuses like Boğaziçi or Middle East Technical University the state has also invested heavily in constructing and opening new universities, often in more provincial settings, in order to build its own hegemonic institutions. As Alemdaroğlu explains in her piece, "Although access to institutions of higher education has expanded greatly, academic freedom has been steadily eroded through the combined force of ordinary administrative authority and extraordinary instruments such as emergency decrees, which together reoriented universities toward political compliance." The conversation also covered the abrupt closure and swift re-opening of Istanbul Bilgi University in May, one of Turkey’s leading private universities and an avant-garde institution for liberal and progressive academics.  This conversation was recorded on June 8, 2026 Further reading:  Ayça Alemdaroğlu, “The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/the-cumulative-capture-of-turkeys-universities-under-the-akp/], Middle East Report, Issue 318, Spring 2026 Ayça Alemdaroğlu and Elif Babül, “Boğaziçi Resists Authoritarian Control of the Academy in Turkey” [https://www.merip.org/2021/02/bogazici-resists-authoritarian-control-of-the-academy-in-turkey/] Middle East Report Online, February 23, 2021  Ayça Alemdaroğlu “The University in the Making of Authoritarian Turkey” [https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/8114] European Journal of Turkish Studies Issue 34, 2022  Ayça Alemdaroğlu, “Tek İmza Cumhuriyetinde Üniversite: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversite” [https://birikimdergisi.com/guncel/12461/tek-imza-cumhuriyetinde-universite-istanbul-bilgi-universitesi] (“The University in the Single-Signature Republic: Istanbul Bilgi University”), Birikim Dergisi May 26, 2026 “Yellow Letters” (Sarı Zarflar) [Film] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32888226/ [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32888226/]  MESA Committee on Academic Freedom, Letters on Turkey  [https://mesana.org/advocacy/committee-on-academic-freedom/-/-/turkey] The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Episode 22: Aslı Bâli and Darryl Li

Today's episode of the MERIP Podcast features an interview with two contributors to the spring issue of Middle East Report, “Campus Politics—Palestine and the New University Order.” [https://www.merip.org/issue-318/] Since the beginning of world-wide campus protests in the wake of October 7, 2023, there has been a tremendous upswell of organizing and support for Palestinian liberation and activism against US militarism. In response, a wave of repression against students, staff and faculty on campus began in 2023 and accelerated after Donald Trump took office. Our latest issue takes stock of these dynamics and the stakes of political action on campus in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.  To discuss campus politics in our present moment, MERIP’s executive director, James Ryan, was joined by Aslı Bâli and Darryl Li. Aslı Bâli is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the former president of the Middle East Studies Association. Her article in this issue, “Fighting the Campus Crackdown–Why the Middle East Studies Association Took the Trump Administration to Court,” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/fighting-the-campus-crackdown-why-the-middle-east-studies-association-took-the-trump-administration-to-court/] is a reflection on MESA’s lawsuit, with the American Association of University Professors and the Knight First Amendment Institute, against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump Administration over the free speech rights of noncitizens, like Rümeysa Öztürk and others, who spoke up about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Darryl Li is an associate professor of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, and a contributor, along with Andrew Ross, Lara Deeb, Meera Shah and Lisa Hajjar to “The University is a Site of Struggle—A Roundtable with Faculty Organizers on Repression and Resistance on US Campuses.” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/the-university-is-a-site-of-struggle-a-roundtable-on-repression-and-resistance-on-us-campuses/] Further Reading:  Aslı Bâli, “Fighting the Campus Crackdown [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/fighting-the-campus-crackdown-why-the-middle-east-studies-association-took-the-trump-administration-to-court/]— [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/the-university-is-a-site-of-struggle-a-roundtable-on-repression-and-resistance-on-us-campuses/]Why the Middle East Studies Association Took the Trump Administration to Court” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/fighting-the-campus-crackdown-why-the-middle-east-studies-association-took-the-trump-administration-to-court/] Middle East Report, no. 318 (Spring 2026).  Lisa Hajjar, Lara Deeb, Darryl Li, Andrew Ross and Meera Shah, “‘The University is a Site of Struggle—A Roundtable with Faculty Organizers on Repression and Resistance on US Campuses” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/the-university-is-a-site-of-struggle-a-roundtable-on-repression-and-resistance-on-us-campuses/]  Middle East Report, no. 318 (Spring 2026). The MESA Academic Freedom Initiative [https://afi.mesana.org/]  MESA and AAUP, “Discriminating Against Dissent: The Weaponization of Civil Rights Law to Repress Campus Speech on Palestine [https://mesana.org/advocacy/task-force-on-civil-and-human-rights/2025/11/05/discriminating-against-dissent-the-weaponization-of-civil-rights-law-to-repress-campus-speech-on-palestine],” November 5, 2025. Palestine Legal 2025 Report [https://palestinelegal.org/news/palestine-legal-2025-report]  The Knight First Amendment Institute [https://knightcolumbia.org/]  PEN America, “Expanding the Web of Control–America’s Censored Campuses 2025,” [https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-campuses-25-web-of-control/] January 15, 2025.  The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Episode 21: Susann Kassem, Lara Deeb and Habib Battah

Today on the podcast three MERIP contributors discuss Lebanon’s tenuous, one-sided ceasefire with Israel. Even as officials in the Lebanese government have entered into negotiations with Israel, an unprecedented diplomatic move with questionable legal status under Lebanese law, Israel has violated the ceasefire numerous times and has continued its efforts to destroy villages south of its unilaterally declared “yellow line” in preparation for expanded occupation and settlement. Some displaced Lebanese from the south have temporarily returned to assess the damage to their homes and villages, and many Shi’a across Lebanon remain under threat.  Joining MERIP’s executive director James Ryan to discuss this bleak reality and internal Lebanese politics are Susann Kassem, an anthropologist and Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow between Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Geneva Graduate Institute and author of “‘Our Compass is Broken’—Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon,” published by MERIP on April 2; Lara Deeb, a professor of anthropology and Middle Eastern and North African studies at Scripps College and co-author of MERIP’s “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Palestine and Resistance to Israeli Violence;” and Habib Battah, an independent journalist who teaches global studies at St. Lawrence University in New York and whose most recent article for MERIP was “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy.”  This podcast was recorded on April 22, 2026.  Further reading:  Habib Battah, “Beirut and the Birth of the Fortress Embassy” [https://www.merip.org/2024/04/beirut-and-the-birth-of-the-fortress-embassy/] Middle East Report Online, April 10, 2024 Lara Deeb, Maya Mikdashi, Tsolin Nalbantian, Nadya Sbaiti, “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Palestine and Resistance to Israeli Violence” [https://www.merip.org/a-primer-on-lebanon-history-palestine-and-resistance-to-israeli-violence-2/] Middle East Report, Issue 313 Winter 2024 Susann Kassem, “‘Our Compass is Broken’--Israel’s Ongoing War in South Lebanon” [https://www.merip.org/2026/04/our-compass-is-broken-israels-ongoing-war-in-south-lebanon/] Middle East Report Online April 2, 2026 Malek Abisaab and Michelle Hartman, What the War Left Behind: Women’s Stories of Resistance and Struggle in Lebanon [https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/6238/what-the-war-left-behind/] Syracuse University Press, 2024  Munira Khayyat, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/a-landscape-of-war/paper] University of California Press, 2022 Munira Khayyat, Another Season of War in Lebanon [https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/series/another-season-of-war-in-lebanon] Society for Cultural Anthropology Editor’s Forum, Hotspots April 11, 2025 Amani Rammal, “Crossing the ‘Security Belt:’ A History of the Occupied Lebanese Border Strip” [https://thepublicsource.org/security-belt-history]The Public Source, April 16, 2026  “The War in Lebanon is Existential with Hala Jaber” [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-war-in-lebanon-is-existential-w-hala-jaber/id1718414647?i=1000755291976] Makdisi Street Podcast, March 14, 2026  Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691124216/an-enchanted-modern?srsltid=AfmBOopPBk-m4aTwWTDOi9gwdhgQp3W4GKIJP1cM-uxeXWaVAdg9kMhO], Princeton University Press, 2006  Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi’ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/shiite-lebanon/9780231513135/] Columbia University Press, 2008  Humans of Dahieh [https://www.instagram.com/humansofdahieh/] (Instagram)  Glenn Diesen–Greater Eurasia Podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/glenn-diesen-greater-eurasia-podcast/id1822142909]  Hadley Suter and Tania El Khoury, “Tania El Khoury’s Soothing ‘Revenge Art’” [https://hyperallergic.com/tania-el-khourys-soothing-revenge-art/] Hyperallergic, April 17, 2026  The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Episode 20: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part III

Today’s episode is the third installment of our MERIP Roundtable discussing the war on Iran, instigated by the US and Israeli on February 28, 2026, and its regional reverberations. This episode focuses on Israel’s expanded war on Lebanon. Following the assassination of Ali Khamanei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hizballah fired six missiles into Israel, its first offensive move since a ceasefire was signed in the fall of 2024. Israel, meanwhile, has violated the ceasefire on a near daily basis over the past year and a half through missile and drone strikes. In the past weeks, Israel has issued mass evacuation warnings across the entire area south of the Litani river, in Dahiyeh south of Beirut and in the Bekaa valley. Invasions, including a commando raid through Syria into the Bekaa followed, as have the near daily barrage of missile and drone attacks. In a matter of a couple of weeks, over one million people have been displaced—representing a quarter of Lebanon’s population.  The renewed assault has raised the stakes of long running issues in Lebanon around national sovereignty and self-defense, and wider questions about how both Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression in the region can be constituted in the face of its overwhelming military and technological advantages. To discuss these issues, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan was joined by Rima Majed, an associate professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, whose work has focused on sectarianism, social movements and conflict in Lebanon. Rima Majed is a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and also the author of a short essay on the war on Lebanon that appeared as part of our collection “War Across Boundaries–Perspectives on Iran and a Region Under Siege,” published on March 19, 2026. Also joining the podcast is Ali Musleh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California-Davis, whose research focuses on the effects of automated warscapes on everyday life and resistance in Palestine. This conversation was recorded on March 23rd, 2026.  Further Reading: Laleh Khalili (interview) Democracy Now “The End of the Petrodollar? How Iran War Is Reshaping the Global Economy: Author Laleh Khalili” [https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/19/south_pars_bombed] March 19, 2026 Joseph Daher, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God [https://www.plutobooks.com/product/hezbollah/] (Pluto Press, 2016) Abdaljawad Omar, “Gaza Faces the World” [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-10-gaza-vs-the-world-w-abdaljawad-omar/id1847060038?i=1000745875700&l=zh-Hans-CN] Turbulence Podcast Episode 10, January 20, 2026 Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War On Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine/] (Macmillan, 2020) The Material Politics of Normalization [https://www.merip.org/issue-315-316/] Middle East Report Summer/Fall 2025, Issue 315-316 Munira Khayyat, “Dispatch from South Lebanon–Life as Resistance at the End of the World” [https://www.merip.org/2025/01/dispatch-from-south-lebanon/] Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313 Lara Deeb, Maya Mikdashi, Tsolin Nalbantian and Nadya Sbaiti, “A Primer on Lebanon–History, Politics and Resistance to Israeli Violence” [https://www.merip.org/a-primer-on-lebanon-history-palestine-and-resistance-to-israeli-violence-2/] Middle East Report Winter 2024, Issue 313 The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Episode 19: The MERIP Roundtable, On the Iran War Part II

On today’s episode of the MERIP Roundtable our discussion focused on people’s experiences of the war on Iran and throughout the region two and a half weeks in. Much of the discussion of this war in the western media has centered on the strategic calculus of the United States and Israel in deciding to go to war, how long it may endure and what that means for Americans. Despite the fact that Iranians are withstanding a bombardment that is comparable in scale to Israel’s initial assault on Gaza in October 2023, the immense damage being done to the country is less prominent in the discourse. According to official Iranian sources, there have been over 1,400 civilian casualties, 18,000 injuries and 61,000 civilian structures damaged. According to the UN, approximately 3.2 million people have been displaced. Given these facts, MERIP’s executive director James Ryan asked our roundtable how Iranians are dealing with the US and Israeli siege. How are they getting information in and out, and how should those of us outside of Iran contextualize what we’re hearing and seeing? Also, since he was joined by fellow historians, they discussed how we can begin to see this war’s many dimensions in a longer historical trajectory.  This edition of the MERIP Roundtable features Naghmeh Sohrabi, a frequent MERIP contributor, the Charles Corky Goodman Professor of Middle East History at Brandeis University and the director of research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies; Kaveh Ehsani, associate professor of international studies at DePaul University and a member of MERIP’s Board of Directors and Toby Craig Jones, associate professor of history at Rutgers University and a member of MERIP’s editorial committee.  This discussion was recorded on March 18, 2026 Further Reading: Nashraasoo [https://aasoo.org/] (@nashraasoo on Instagram) Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mantle-of-the-Prophet/Roy-P-Mottahedeh/9781851686162] (New York, Simon and Schuster) Kaveh Ehsani, “Voices from the Middle East: US Sanctions on Iran Devastate the Health Sector [https://www.merip.org/2020/03/voices-from-the-middle-east-us-sanctions-on-iran-devastate-the-health-sector/]” Middle East Report Online March 31, 2020  Costs of War Project [https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/] (Brown University) Joy Gordon ed., Economic Sanctions from Havana to Baghdad [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/economic-sanctions-from-havana-to-baghdad/E77CFB981432A0F8DBD6790740448C51] (Cambridge, 2025) Joy Gordon, “The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions” [https://www.merip.org/2020/06/the-enduring-lessons-of-the-iraq-sanctions/] Middle East Report Spring 2020  Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón, Mark Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis” [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00189-5/fulltext] The Lancet Global Health, 13, e1358-e1366 Noura Erakat, Luigi Daniele, Shahd Hammouri, Ata Hindi, Maryam Jamshidi and Darryl Li, “Roundtable on the War on Iran and International Law” [https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/47234/Roundtable-on-the-War-on-Iran-and-International-Law] Jadaliyya, March 13, 2026 Firoozeh Kashani Sabet, “Iranicide: the Genealogy of Hate” [https://the-tempered-view.ghost.io/iranicide-the-genealogy-of-hate-the-haunting-sight-of-thick-black-smoke-suffocating-iranians-seemingly-signals-the-slow-asphyxiation-of-a-proud-country-before-the-worlds-eyes-with-the-i/] The Tempered View, March 14, 2026 The MERIP Podcast features exclusive interviews with contributors to the Middle East Research and Information Project from the present and past about their work for MERIP, as well as audio from events we've conducted online and in-person that examine contemporary issues in the politics, economy, society and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by James Ryan, MERIP's Executive Director. Visit our website, www.merip.org, to read all of our work without paywalls. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.