In 1938, Australian writer Alan Villiers traveled to the Gulf to document what he believed to be the last days of Arab sailing traditions. The neglect of Villiers’ account in academic research highlights how the Gulf’s cultural isolation is related to a deeper Orientalist structure of thought that overlooks the sea in its portrayal of the Arabian Peninsula. This Essay examines the legacies of Villiers’ work in the early history of Kuwaiti cinema and its preoccupation with the sea, pearl-diving, and pre-oil economic class distinctions to show what gives the seas such an allure in Kuwaiti film and literature.

Forty-seven years have passed since Edward Said published his masterpiece Orientalism in 1978, and his ideas remain pertinent to the understanding of the contemporary regional context and how it is both perceived and portrayed. This Essay aims to contextualize Orientalism within the current political moments, focusing on the case of contemporary Syria, as a striking example of Orientalist imperial and colonial legacies, totalitarian history, and post-conflict dynamics, and the continued manipulation of Orientalist discourses as tools of control.

Sitting on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, Dubai has acted as a crossroads of trade and diverse communities throughout its history. With the discovery of oil in the 1960s and the increase of expatriates, several churches of many denominations were built across the city to provide permanent spaces of worship. In this Essay, Dr. Khawla Almarri traces the history of Dubai’s Christian communities from the pre-oil era to the present day and explores how religious recognition systems can be understood and fostered by public sector institutions.

Since the second half of the 20th century, the Arab region has witnessed pivotal and transformative political events that have shaped its modern history. Arab(ic) autobiographical literature has flourished in these contexts. A plethora of these texts have been written by women. This Essay aims to present a brief history of Arab women writing about their experiences of war and political upheavals in autobiographical texts.

Interlinking the historic ties between Africa and Palestine from the 1950s to the present day, Senior Fellow Dahlia El Zein provides a chronological overview of African solidarity towards the Palestinian question, and how it has evolved over the decades. From Libya to Nairobi, Africans have demonstrated that their historic solidarity with Palestine should not be forgotten.

Historically, the heterogeneous nature of the Middle East represented an opportunity for foreign and colonial actors to justify their political and military interventions in the region, manipulating sectarian identities for realpolitik gains. This Essay aims to examine anti-sectarian discourse in Ottoman Syria, which included modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, during the late 19th century. It will do so through a careful mapping of Butrus al-Bustani’s works.

“Dramas of transition” were modern experiments that showcased how Gulf intellectuals and artists at the time dealt and engaged with the early emergence of modernity in their countries. The works are best understood as tragi-comic tales of mock heroic characters, and since the actors and screenwriters were either born or came of age in the era depicted in the dramas, the acting becomes in and of itself an act of remembering.

While some common understandings suggest that Arab intra-regional transport
prospered before falling into obsolescence, it is more accurate to say that its state
fluctuates in line with changing circumstances in an ever-dynamic regional landscape. This Essay examines these interconnected and overlapping processes to study cross-border transport modes in a more critical light. In doing so, it attempts to show that Arab mobility is intimately and intricately enmeshed within broader political and historical dynamics.