The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants a...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mehmet Çelik about his new book, Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood, published by Syracuse University Press in 2026.The book tells the story of Rusçuk — known today as Ruse, in northern Bulgaria — a co ...  Show more

Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, Relative Strangers (U Toronto Press, 2024) sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. Arpan Roy presents an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming ...  Show more

Zozan Pehlivan on "The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century" (Cambridge University Press). The book explores how extreme climate disruptions were a major factor behind tensions between Christian Armenian peasants and Muslim Kurdi ...

In the wake of the First World War and Russian Revolutions, Central Europeans in 1919 faced a world of possibilities, threats, and extreme contrasts. Dramatic events since the end of the world war seemed poised to transform the world, but the form of that transformation was uncle ...  Show more

The recent violence that engulfed Gaza and Jerusalem began with an issue that's plagued the region for a century now: settlements. In East Jerusalem, Palestinian residents are facing forced removal by Israeli settler organizations. It's a pattern that has repeated over the histor ...  Show more

How did World War One change the face of the Middle East? And, how did this seismic and controversial period shape the century to follow?