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Category: EUME

Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME) is a multi-disciplinary research program at the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien. The guiding idea of EUME is to explore the historical, political, religious, social and cultural interconnections and demarcations that link and divide Europe and the Middle East. In contrast to thinking in terms of opposites and dichotomies, the diverse processes of reception and translation, common historical legacies, and the mobility of persons, ideas, and societies are to be brought into focus.

Editors: Georges Khalil, Claudia Pfitzner, and Chiara Midulla

A group of women dressed in black dances while holding colorful handkerchiefs.

Iran: A Nation Inscribed Anew in Joyful Mourning

By Nahid Siamdoust. These days in Iran people are marking the 40th day after the passing of the thousands who were killed in the January 2026 protests, an Islamic tradition that symbolizes the closure of the mourning period. Reports and videos from the country show hundreds of people gathered, clapping in honor of the dead and singing the national anthem, in unconventional ceremonies that are more akin to political events than personal commemorations. In rejecting long entrenched traditions of collective mourning, these Iranians are enacting a new articulation of national identity, one that refuses to trade in the same language of the Islamic Republic.

Old black-and-white photo of three people, from left to right: A man with glasses wearing an uniform and a black hat, a boy with short hair, an older boy in the same uniform and hat.

Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist

By Najati Sidqi, Introduction by Margaret Litvin. In the opening chapter of his posthumously published memoir, the activist and intellectual Najati Sidqi (1905–1979) reminisces about the cultural heterogeneity of his birthplace Jerusalem. In 1924, he became one of its first Arab members of the Palestine Communist Party (PCP). The PCP rejected both British imperial rule and Zionism, which they considered “a bourgeois movement that benefited only wealthy Jews. They insisted that their party, which “was for all inhabitants of Palestine,” could “reconcile the interests of the working classes” of Jews and Arabs alike.

A mural showing Baschar al-Assad holding a sign that reads "Syrial killer".

Staying With Uncertainty: Syrian Intellectual Life in Germany

By Anne-Marie McManus. In a recent essay published by Reset Dialogues on Civilizations, Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab called on scholars to attend closely to the forms and concerns that shape contemporary Arab thought, locating its newness in the uprisings of 2011 and the ruptures that followed. In his response, included in the broader dossier, Samer Frangie cautioned that the category of “Arab thought” functions as a “historiographical device,” one that has brought together “dispersed, contradictory, and elusive acts of” intellectual production under a shared political horizon.

Colorful graffiti showing a blue flower in the center.

“Revolution has become more conceivable today”

By Nahid Siamdoust. For four decades, the Islamic Republic has systematically repressed internal opposition: targeting civil, labour and women’s rights activists through imprisonment, exile and violence, leaving Iran without a structured political alternative. Nevertheless, Iranians have risen up several times in nationwide protests to demand more rights and freedom. Is Iran’s regime at a breaking point? The economic crisis is central to the recent protests, argues EUME-Fellow Nahid Siamdoust. She assesses the significance of the recent uprising, examines its potential leaders and outlines five possible scenarios for what comes next.

Six men listening to the portable radios in their hands, looking happy.

UnArchive: Sonic Materialities and Sound Media of Migration

By Nazan Maksudyan. The cultural history of labor migration is a well-established field with a rich body of scholarship. However, the production of everyday life by labor migrants through sonic means, and the sound cultures shaped by experiences of displacement, have received comparatively little attention. In this short intervention, following Tom Western, I argue that sound is a central dimension in understanding and representing migration, making it necessary to integrate sound studies into migration history. I further emphasize the audibility of migration and propose that it is possible both to listen to and listen with migration.

A woman with long dark hair holding a microphone.

“There is no way to look a conspiracy theory in the eye” – 5in10 with Aya Labanieh

Aya Labanieh is a scholar of empire, conspiracy, media, and memory culture. She received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and is presently a fellow at Columbia University’s Narrative Intelligence Lab and a research affiliate with the EUME research program’s project SYRASP at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Her work contends with the intertwinement of conspiracy, memory, and power in Anglophone and Arabophone literatures and mediaspheres—spanning genres of dystopian science fiction, radical Internet subcultures, and the memoirs of agents and spies.

Electric Istanbul

In her research project, EUME Fellow Nurçin İleri traces the electrification of Istanbul during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish nation state. She examines how, where and by whom electrical energy was generated and how it was distributed. In doing so, she shows how the electricity grid spread around the Bosphorus with street lights and electric trams, creating new social and political interdependencies and permanently changing the everyday lives of many Istanbulites.

A group of children looking up towards a photographer.

“Maybe we should start by admitting the truth” – 5in10 with Eli Osheroff

Eli Osheroff is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a focus on Arab political and intellectual history and the Arab-Zionist conflict. He holds a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Truman Institute, at the Jacob Robinson Institute at the Hebrew University, and in the Dan David Society of Fellows at Tel Aviv University. His first book, based on his doctoral dissertation, is forthcoming from the Van Leer Institute and deals with Arab political imagination from the late Ottoman period to 1948. The book focuses on Arab visions for an independent Palestine and the place of Jewish settlers in the future Arab state. Eli’s articles have appeared in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, the Israel-Palestine Review, and other venues.

Dalia Halabi in a red blouse, listening and taking notes during an event.

“Gaining Access was a Major Challenge” – 5in10 with Dalia Halabi

Dalia Halabi is a sociologist of education who adopts a “study up” approach to critically examine educational and social disparities. She holds a PhD in Leadership and Policy in Education from the University of Haifa and an MA in Conflict Management and Mediation from Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral research explored the formation of elite identity among Palestinian students and alumni of private schools in Israel, analyzing how educational experiences shape distinction, belonging, and social trajectories within a context of national marginalization.

Illustration of workers protesting in front of a ship.

Solidarity against Empire in a Colonial Port City

By Rim Naguib. In January 1907, days of demonstrations swept through the streets and port of Alexandria and spread to Cairo. They had been provoked by the arrest of three migrant trade unionists from Odessa on accusations of intended sabotage on a Russian ship. Through this little-known event, much is revealed of the nature of colonial governance and the rule of difference. The event sheds light on the possibilities of a movement of anti-authoritarianism and solidarity that cuts across race, communal affiliations and social class, despite the colonial setting that fostered racial hierarchies and communalism, and where internationalist ideas and mobilisations were highly policed.