Essays

Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta

Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta

Lawrence Joffe on how the al-Assad and Makhlouf families have mastered the art of control and corruption in...

14 JUNE 2021 • By Lawrence Joffe
The Wall We Can’t Tell You About

The Wall We Can’t Tell You About

There are some walls we can't discuss freely and openly without inviting censure. This is one of them.

14 MAY 2021 • By Jean Lamore
The Bathing Partition

The Bathing Partition

In this creative exploration of identity and homelessness, Sheana Ochoa faces her own inner walls and travels to...

14 MAY 2021 • By Sheana Ochoa
From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary

From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary

Frances Zaid describes in epistolary fashion the language barriers in her blooming relationship (leading to marriage and kids)...

14 MAY 2021 • By Frances Zaid
The Labyrinth of Memory

The Labyrinth of Memory

Critic Ziad Suidan meditates on the meaning of the labyrinth and the walls that can separate us but...

14 MAY 2021 • By Ziad Suidan
Is Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek, Too, Occupied Territory?

Is Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek, Too, Occupied Territory?

Taylor Miller explores the aesthetics of gentrification and the "settler colonial hydra that continually displaces, erases, and reinscribes...

14 MAY 2021 • By Taylor Miller
Between Thorns and Thistles in Bil’in

Between Thorns and Thistles in Bil’in

Muralist Francisco Letelier travels to the West Bank to help a Palestinian community confront the Occupation with art.

14 MAY 2021 • By Francisco Letelier
We Are All at the Border Now

We Are All at the Border Now

Roving reporter Todd Miller, who has published four books exploring the world and its borders, questions the philosophy...

14 MAY 2021 • By Todd Miller
Beautiful/Ugly: Against Aestheticizing Israel’s Separation Wall

Beautiful/Ugly: Against Aestheticizing Israel’s Separation Wall

Malu Halasa revisits the question of whether walls, borders and barriers should ever be dressed up to disguise...

14 MAY 2021 • By Malu Halasa
Reviving Hammam Al Jadeed

Reviving Hammam Al Jadeed

Artist Tom Young who divides his time between Beirut and London, paints in Hammam Al Jadid during its...

14 MAY 2021 • By Tom Young
Dinner at the White House, in the Lion’s Den

Dinner at the White House, in the Lion’s Den

Francisco Letelier searches for the truth about his father's assassination in Washington DC while excavating US government complicity...

14 MARCH 2021 • By Francisco Letelier
The New Gatekeepers: How proprietary algorithms increasingly determine the news we see

The New Gatekeepers: How proprietary algorithms increasingly determine the news we see

Would you trust an algorithm to sell you a used car? Andy Lee Roth peers under the hood...

14 MARCH 2021 • By Andy Lee Roth
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