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Category: Reviews

Reviews introduce new books, articles, special issues of journals, films, exhibitions, and music recordings that are of interest within the field of transregional studies. For more information see Contributions.

The skyline of Tunis in front of a cloudy sky.

Re-thinking Peace and Conflict Studies in a Postcolonial World

By Miriam Bartelmann, Viviana García Pinzón, and Fabricio Rodríguez. The conference Re-thinking Peace and Conflict Studies in a Postcolonial World took place in Tunis in October 2025, marking the culmination of four years of collaborative research, while opening a space for collective reflection on the network’s contributions to the field. The discussions addressed the deep relationship between knowledge production and global hierarchies, showing that rethinking peace and conflict studies necessarily entails confronting the field’s epistemic foundations while remaining attentive to geopolitical developments, uneven power relations and the political economies affecting it.

Two pictures on exposed brick wall, showing objects of the Pergamon Museum in boxes.

Berlin Museums Set To Return Everything

By Loes Hendriks, Çiçek İlengiz, Florence Potter and Judith Sieber. ‘Berlin Museums Set To Return Everything’ reviews a temporary exhibition of the Berlin Pergamon Museum, a glimpse into their year-long reconstruction phase, against the grain. The mock piece looks optimistically at the display of the exhibition that gives the impression that a critical reflection of the state of restitution in Germany has actually led to its logical solution: to finally return everything in order to arrive at the form of the decolonial museum.

Colourfull streetart.

“Is there a Moroccan Thought?”

By Idriss Jebari. The question “Is there a Moroccan Thought?” drives the recent volume Contemporary Moroccan Thought by Mohamed Hashas (University of Rome Tor Vergata), published earlier this year by Brill. This review focusses on Hashas’s introductory essay titled “Rabat School of Thought: Tradition, Modernity, and Critique from the Edge.” At over 120 pages, it could represent a book in its own right. It contains the editor’s original and provocative answer to the above-mentioned question. In the following six points, I explore how it might be received by its different publics, and suggest the volume’s possible aftermaths.

A person presenting in front of a room.

Theorie und Geschichte der „Kleinen Literaturen“

Von Erik Martin. Vom 25. bis 27. Juni 2025 richtete die Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) im Rahmen des Projekts „Europäische Zeiten/European Times“ (EUTIM) einen Workshop zu Fragen der Theorie und Geschichte der „Kleinen Literaturen“ aus. Die von Claudia Dathe, Oksana Pashko, Schamma Schahadat und Annette Werberger organisierte Veranstaltung brachte Literaturwissenschaftler·innen mit Expertise in ukrainischer, jiddischer, polnischer, rumänischer und bosnisch-herzegowinischer Literatur(-geschichte) zusammen, um über die Konzeptualisierung, die ästhetischen Strategien und historischen Entwicklungen sogenannter „kleiner Literaturen“ zu diskutieren.

Part of the book cover.

Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War – A Conversation with Amir Moosavi

Amir Moosavi in conversation with Anne-Marie McManus. In his book “Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War”, Moosavi explores the massive literary output of the Iran-Iraq War, choosing a comparative approach: In contrasting Iranian and Iraqi writers, it shows the common experiences of war and writing under authoritarian regimes as well as the writers’ various entanglements with this war that overlapped and diverged over time.

Old photograph of a boy, above it a rubber stamp.

Witnessing Witnessing – On the Role of Art and its Audience in Times of Violence

By Judith Sieber. With the thematic focus “Witnessing Witnessing”, the European Media Art Festival (EMAF) 2025 took up the question of second degree witnessing “to explore the role of witnesses today, how testimonies – like statements, documents, individual objects or entire archives – shape our view of the world and how they can influence political reality.” This text is not a review of the festival – both the plurality of approaches and the political discussions that took place were far too complex. Rather, it is an attempt to think along the line of three of the films shown and to try to explore the meaning of witnessing in the current moment. The author takes a look at three films – “Das falsche Wort” (English The Lie, 1987) by Katrin Seybold and Melanie Spitta, “Empty Metal” (2018), a feature film directed by Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer, and “Vents Violents” (Two letters to Chantal Akerman) from 2025.

War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine

By Denys Shatalov. The monuments we encounter in a territory tell us not so much about its past as about present ideology. The new study by Mischa Gabowitsch and Mykola Homanyuk, “Monuments and Territory. War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine” explores the fate of war memorials in the Russian-occupied territories during the first year of the ongoing full-scale war. The authors focus on war memorials honouring different eras and conflicts, from the medieval battle of Kalka to the Soviet War in Afghanistan and the Anti-Terrorist Operation in Eastern Ukraine (2014–2022), erected in Soviet times or during Ukrainian independence.

Akouda 1943: A Voice from the Margins

By Cyrine Kortas. “Akouda 1943” is the third novel by Tunisian writer Houayda Ben Halima, published in 2017. The story takes place in the author’s hometown during World War II, when Tunisia was a battleground between Axis and Allied forces. Through her unique storytelling that merges history and fiction, Ben Halima informs readers about wartime politics while evoking deep emotional responses through well-developed characters and historical research to reflect on the human condition in times of conflict. For readers seeking a deep dive into the complexities of war through an engaging narrative lens, the novel offers a compelling experience that remains relevant today.

The Scopophilic Pleasure of the Gaze in Asfour Stah

By Najla Mosbahi. Asfour Stah (also known as Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces) is a film that explores the complexities of Tunisian society in the early 1990s. At this time, Tunisia was undergoing significant social change, grappling with the legacy of Habib Bourguiba’s progressive reforms that had improved women’s rights. However, despite these advancements, traditional gender roles remained deeply entrenched, creating a complex landscape for women. With the film, director Férid Boughedir aimed at revealing “the hidden struggles of women in a society that often silences their voices, showcasing their strength and resilience within the constraints imposed by tradition”.

A Political History of the Contemporary Maghreb: From the 1950s to the Present – Conversation with Nessim Znaien

Nessim Znaien is a Junior Professor at the University of Marburg, holding the (Post)colonial Maghreb Chair since April 2022. After studying history in Lyon and Paris, he defended a doctoral thesis at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne in September 2017, entitled “Les raisins de la domination. Histoire sociale de l’alcool dans la Tunisie du Protectorat (1881-1956)”. Nessim Znaien is one of the editors of the journal l’Année du Maghreb. He conducts research on the history of material culture in the colonial and post-colonial Maghreb, in particular on the history of food and cereals. A Conversation with Diana Abbani.