From the Editors:
In this issue, we are proud to publish a diverse collection of peer-reviewed articles that represent new directions in the critical interdisciplinary study of the Middle East and North Africa. In her article, “Writing Africa for Africans: Du Bois, Egyptian Africanists, and the Encyclopedia Africana Project Between Dreams and Disruptions,” May Kosba traces the historical evolution of W. E. B. Du Bois’s vision for a pan-African encyclopedia through his and his family’s interactions with Egyptian Africanists. She contrasts Du Bois’s own evolving vision for this project with that of Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony Appiah, who claimed Du Bois’s legacy for their encyclopedia project decades later. In her article, “Crime and Dystopia in Three Egyptian Novels: Dissecting Cityscapes and the Body as a Terrain for Political Critique,” Dalia Said Mostafa situates recent Egyptian dystopian crime fiction in its postrevolutionary political context. Examining recent works by Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq, Basma ‘Abdel ‘Aziz, and Nael Eltoukhy, Mostafa evokes how each author explores the bodily experience of dystopic oppression as a means to grapple with a counterrevolutionary present... [read more] |
VOL. XXXIII, NO.1-2: Fall 2025 Table of Contents ESSAYS: SEISMIC SHIFTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST Introduction: “Seismic Shifts” in the Middle East? Reflections From MESA Global Academy Scholars Diana B. Greenwald Authoritarianism Reinvented: Post-Assad Syria and the Strategic Reorientation of the Arab East Dina Hadad Ruling in the Grey Zones: Hybrid Warfare and the Remaking of Political Order in the Middle East Nadia Al-Sakkaf ARTICLES Writing Africa for Africans: Du Bois, Egyptian Africanists, and the Encyclopedia Africana Project Between Dreams and Disruptions May Kosba Crime and Dystopia in Three Egyptian Novels: Dissecting Cityscapes and the Body as a Terrain for Political Critique Dalia Said Mostafa Tobacco Cultivation in the West Bank Between Economic Survival and Settler-Colonial Constraints Kholoud Al-Ajarma, D. A. Jaber, and Jawida Mansour Palestinian Farmers’ Resilience Against the Settler Colonial-Capitalist Production of Vulnerability in the Jordan Valley Fairouz Salem REVIEWS The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century By Zozan Pehlivan Reviewed by Deren Ertas The Untold Story of the Golan Heights: Occupation, Colonization, and Jawlani Resistance Edited by Muna Dajani, Munir Fakher Eldin, and Michael Mason Reviewed by Gary Fields Egypt’s Beer: Stella, Identity, and the Modern State By Omar D. Foda Reviewed by Kaleb Herman Adney The Arab Nahda as Popular Entertainment: Mass Culture and Modernity in the Middle East Edited by Hala Auji, Raphael Cormack, and Alaaeldin Mahmoud Reviewed by Adéla Provazníková A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon By Munira Khayyat Reviewed by Susann Kassem |