Essays

“Where Are You From?” Identity and the Spirit of Ethno-Futurism

“Where Are You From?” Identity and the Spirit of Ethno-Futurism

Writer and film executive Bavand Karim meditates on Iranian American identity and an alternative vision for self-realization in...

15 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Bavand Karim
The Alexandrian: Life and Death in L.A.

The Alexandrian: Life and Death in L.A.

An Egyptian American daughter recalls the enduring love her immigrant father harbored for Los Angeles and the American...

15 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Noreen Moustafa
(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”

(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”

Arie Akkermans reviews an Iraqi American's exhibitions as they attempt to recreate missing and destroyed artifacts taken from...

7 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Mapping an Escape from Cairo’s Hyperreality through informal Instagram archives

Mapping an Escape from Cairo’s Hyperreality through informal Instagram archives

Even as the despotic rulers of post-revolution Egypt attempt to remake greater Cairo, hoping to gloss over the...

24 JANUARY 2022 • By Yahia Dabbous
Taming the Immigrant: Musings of a Writer in Exile

Taming the Immigrant: Musings of a Writer in Exile

Former prisoner and Egyptian writer in exile Ahmed Naji contemplates what it means to be a "brown writer"...

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Ahmed Naji
Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay

Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay

Photographer, documentarian and journalist Iason Athanasiadis shares images from more than 10 years of reporting from Afghanistan to...

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Objective Brits, Subjective Syrians

Objective Brits, Subjective Syrians

"What a British person imagined Syria or the Middle East to be ... was more important than what...

6 DECEMBER 2021 • By Rana Haddad
Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest

Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest

Jenine Abboushi inaugurates a new monthly column with a story about a prominent family that lost everything in...

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Syria Through British Eyes

Syria Through British Eyes

British-Syrian novelist Rana Haddad compares her experience growing up in Syria with the way people beyond Syria's borders...

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Haddad
Traveling in Contentious Spaces — Saudi Arabia

Traveling in Contentious Spaces — Saudi Arabia

When friends in Abu Dhabi asked Deborah Williams how she could support MBS by going to “his” festival,...

22 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Deborah Williams
Etel Adnan’s Sun and Sea: In Remembrance

Etel Adnan’s Sun and Sea: In Remembrance

Art critic Arie Amaya-Akkermans summons the gods of art and poetry as he reviews the life work of...

19 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Climate Disasters Hasten the Advent of a World Refugee Crisis

Climate Disasters Hasten the Advent of a World Refugee Crisis

Novelist Omar El Akkad ("What Strange Paradise", "American War") warns that wildfires and other climate disasters are creating...

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Omar El Akkad
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