Everyday Orientalism Podcast

About Everyday Orientalism Podcast

The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” The podcast is hosted by anthropologist Dr. Girish Daswani and features a stellar line-up of academics and thinkers from across the globe. Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of Everyday Orientalism (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/), a public platform through which students, academics, and citizens reflect on how history and power shape the ways in which human societies define themselves. The platform foregrounds the histories and political struggles that those in power often seek to erase. ______________________________________ Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame Salame (https://madamesalame.bandcamp.com/album/madame-salame) – Decaf

Publisher

Girish Daswani

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

8 Jun 2026

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

10 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   13 Oct 2026

   Academic Freedom and the Palestine Exception

   Maura Finkelstein joins us this week to discuss the role of the intellectual in a time of genocide. Should we forsake historical facts and engage in political dishonesty for careerist ambition, or should we critically and empathetically respond to oppression and speak truth to power? We speak about Maura’s firing from her college, the failures and potentials of the discipline of anthropology in speaking out against genocide, and the ways in which Zionist political agendas have infiltrated higher education institutions in order to enforce a profound silencing on our campuses. Maura Finkelstein is a writer and anthropologist. Her first book, The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-archive-of-loss), was published by Duke University Press in 2019 and shortlisted for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing.  Her essays on Palestine and Zionism have been published by Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology Now, American Anthropologist, Al Jazeera, and by many other media platforms. She is on the advisory board of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (https://criticalzionismstudies.org/). Additional Resources Césaire, Aimé. 2000 [1950]. Discourse on Colonialism. Trans. Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press. Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. Said, Edward. 1994. Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage Books. Hedges, Chris. 2025. A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine. New York: Seven Stories Press. The Lobby – USA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2F), a four-part undercover investigation by Al Jazeera into Israel’s covert influence campaign in the US Hillel’s Hasbara Fellowships (https://hasbarafellowships.org/) The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame Salame (https://madamesalame.bandcamp.com/album/madame-salame) – Decaf

2. 

   29 Sept 2026

   Truth-telling in a Time of Genocide

   This week we are joined by Kavita Algu and Momodou Taal to talk about the urgent need for truth-tellers  in a world filled with hypocrisy and hollow commitments. Both Kavita and Momodou have experienced discipling and persecution for speaking out against a genocide, and they share their experiences, discuss the neoliberal performance of “decolonization” in universities and health care systems, and share what a liberatory praxis looks like for them. Momodou Taal is a PhD student in Africana Studies at Cornell University, specializing in conceptualizations of sovereignty with a particular focus on West Africa. Momodou is the host of The Malcolm Effect podcast, which provides accessible political education. His work includes training on anti-racism and discussions on Black Muslim discourse, faith, and modernity. Momodou is dedicated to social justice, legal empowerment, and fostering critical dialogue within and beyond the Muslim community. Kavita Algu is a South African born Toronto-based primary care and palliative care physician with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is also a PhD candidate in health policy at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at UofT. Her work focuses on anti-racism, Indigenous-led health interventions, palliative care, and health equity. Show Notes Coulthard, Glen S. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. El-Kurd, Muhammed. 2023. “The right to speak for ourselves.” The Nation, November 27, 2023. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestinians-claim-the-right-to-narrate/tnamp/ (https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestinians-claim-the-right-to-narrate/tnamp/). Ghanayem, Eman, and Theresa R. Beardall. 2024. “The university is a colony.” Diacritics 52 (1): 8–23. Khalidi, Rashid. 2020. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017. New York: Picador Press. Masalha, Nur. 2012. The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London: Zed Books. Masalha, Nur. 2018. “Decolonizing methodology, reclaiming memory: Palestinian oral histories and memories of the Nakba.” In An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba, edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha, 6–39. London: Zed Books. Walcott, Rinaldo. 2019. “The end of diversity.” Public Culture 31 (2): 393–408. Wildeman, Jeremy, and M. Muhannad Ayyash. 2023. Canada as a Settler Colony on the Question of Palestine. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Algu, Kavita. 2024. “The Canadian medical establishment should not remain silent as Israel attacks Palestinian health care facilities (https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/the-canadian-medical-establishment-should-not-remain-silent-as-israel-attacks-palestinian-health-care-facilities/article_4cd4e0de-ae7a-11ef-96c7-6ba8173eb99c.html).” Toronto Star, December 1, 2024. BBC News’ article on Momodou’s self-deportation (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c934y9kv07eo) D. Ghassan Abu-Sittah on the clinic as a site of resistance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb8rB2efVWE) The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having...

3. 

   15 Sept 2026

   "F*ck AI": On Digital Orientalisms

   Sarah Fathallah and Christine Johnston join us this week to dig into the orientalist roots of corporate AI empires. We talk about the ways in which AI corporations ground their goals in frameworks of white supremacy and western imperialist values, how universities are throwing themselves on the AI bandwagon, and how the AI systems that have wormed their way into our everyday lives are built on the dispossession of Palestinian land and lives. Sarah Fathallah (they/any) is an abolitionist community organizer and an MSt candidate in AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge, where they research the carceral impacts of surveillance tech. Sarah is also a member of Survived &amp; Punished California (https://survivedandpunished.org/), anti-surveillance coalitions against technologies like Flock and ShotSpotter, and participatory defense committees in support of activists, undocumented migrants, and criminalized survivors. Christine Johnston is an Associate Professor of Ancient Mediterranean History and affiliate faculty in Anthropology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Her archaeological research focuses on environmental and economic histories of the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and West Asia in antiquity. She also spends much of her time focused on cultural heritage, public history and pedagogy, and the digital humanities. Additional Resources: Organizations and Resources Algorithm Watch (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Falgorithmwatch.org%2Fen%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctaylor.stark%40mail.utoronto.ca%7Cda61ea163f6241f6d94a08df0fba966e%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639246966217894296%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=PLhxhtJwiPNoN0zdxYJoXknVrlSAbwED7MRok6%2FFWGw%3D&amp;reserved=0) Data Workers Inquiry (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata-workers.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctaylor.stark%40mail.utoronto.ca%7Cda61ea163f6241f6d94a08df0fba966e%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639246966217983728%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=3xCJP8fDf2CN2vDn%2F7bRjgQ6DZ5ei1VpRhsTiMA5Ca0%3D&amp;reserved=0) Distributed AI Research Institute (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dair-institute.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctaylor.stark%40mail.utoronto.ca%7Cda61ea163f6241f6d94a08df0fba966e%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639246966218039443%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=RKi5OnYsYKniWBZBFldgw0Yt0aJ4MzD2HaTjxJP0ITU%3D&amp;reserved=0) (DAIR) NAACP – Stop Dirty Data Centers (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnaacp.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fstop-dirty-data-centers&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctaylor.stark%40mail.utoronto.ca%7Cda61ea163f6241f6d94a08df0fba966e%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639246966218068426%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=31F%2Bd7MQRbmk%2FIok3MCYWKwKEZ0HBi8lFR9S3ZZrsKo%3D&amp;reserved=0) <a...

4. 

   1 Sept 2026

   The Whiteness of Academia

   This week we are joined by Juliana Bastos Marques, Kobby Graham, and Hanan Sabea to talk about academic hegemony and the prevailing whiteness of academia. We talk about language, accent, and the dominating influence of English, subverting notions of cores and peripheries by centering the periphery, and how we might break free of the whiteness of the university by destabilizing Western institutions as dominant knowledge producers. Hanan Sabea is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Editor-in-Chief of Cairo Papers in Social Science (https://huss.aucegypt.edu/publications/cairo-papers) at the American University in Cairo. Her research examines the temporalities of land and labor on plantations in Africa, state-subject relations, and the production of histories thereof, as well as knowledge production in the social sciences with a particular focus on alternative modalities of producing knowledge beyond the confines of the University. She is the co-editor of numerous volumes, including most recently: Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation, and the Making of Archives (https://aucpress.com/9781649032355/) (2018) and Academic Dependency and Professionalization in the South: Perspectives from the Periphery (2015). Juliana Bastos Marques is professor of Ancient History at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State. She works with Ancient Historiography, Theory and Reception. She wrote a chapter for Katherine Blouin and Ben Akrigg's Routledge Handbook of Classics, Colonialism, and Postcolonial Theory (https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Classics-Colonialism-and-Postcolonial-Theory/Blouin-Akrigg/p/book/9780367555481) on the history of the Classical tradition in Brazil, and is currently working on a chapter on technology and the future of classics with Charlotte Tupman for a book edited by Neville Morley and Sailakshmi Ramgopal. Kobby Ankomah Graham is an Accra-based writer, cultural researcher, DJ, and doctoral candidate. His work focuses on African musical subcultures, and he has been profiled by the BBC &amp; Global Voices, and his byline has been featured in places like Aperture, Kinfolk, The Guardian, and The Africa Report. His ongoing doctoral research at the University of Ghana explores how artists in Accra’s alternative music scenes practice care and community. Additional Resources Alatas, Syed Farid. 2022. “The Captive Mind and Knowledge Creation in the Thought of Syed Hussein Alatas.” Philippine Sociological Review 70: 1–10. See bibliography for the works of Syed Hussein Alatas. Fanon, Frantz. 1961. Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Pietsch, Tamson. 2013. Empire of Scholars: Universities, Networks and the British Academic World, 1850–1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Said, Edward. 1996. Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage Books. Clip of Ousmane Sembène (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foQ0q4w6z4Q): “I myself I am the sun!” The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host:...

5. 

   18 Aug 2026

   Water and Oil: On Environmental Orientalisms

   This week we welcome Joanne Leow and Yasmine Hafez to discuss the ways in which water in Egypt and oil in Singapore function as expressions of extractive capitalism. We talk about what hides between the fictive narratives of Singapore’s gardens, the ways in which ecocide and environmental destruction elsewhere enable tourism and growth at home, and how state battles over the control of the Nile negatively impact the lives of local peoples. Joanne Leow grew up in Singapore and lives as an uninvited guest on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair of Transnational and Decolonial Digital Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Her most recent publication is the hybrid memoir Exhumations: In the Body of a Petrostate (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/774480/exhumations-by-joanne-leow/9781039057272), from Alchemy Press, 2026. She is currently working on a SSHRC-funded project, Intertidal Polyphonies: Sound, Text, Art, (https://www.joanneleow.ca/projects/moment-cg5yf) archiving the contemporary shorelines of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vancouver, in collaboration with artists, activists, and writers from each city. Yasmine Hafez has recently completed her PhD at SOAS, University of London, and is a Fellow at the Water Diplomacy Center at Jordan University of Science and Technology. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork across the Nile Basin and extensive archival research, her work examines power dynamics in water management and traces the long-term political, social, and ecological processes shaping water governance and environmental justice. She has worked closely with civil society actors and contributed to several publications on water politics and ecological struggles. Additional Resources: Yasmine’s article, “Why You Are Not Doing Fieldwork at Home” (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2025.2481519) The book connected to this project (https://www.routledge.com/Southern-Researchers-and-the-Politics-of-Knowledge-Production-Narrating-from-the-Margins/Abasli-ElAssal-Hafez/p/book/9781041123538), which brings together fieldwork experiences from different researchers—currently available for pre-order and will be out soon. Amitav Ghosh on petrofictions (https://amitavghosh.com/petrofiction-and-petroculture/) Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing. 2016. “Paramilitary Gardening: Landscape and Authoritarianism (https://whysingaporeblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/paramilitary-gardening.pdf)” Kalyanee Mam’s short film, “Lost World (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6_XjUR1mQ)” The “Songs on the Nile” playlist (https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gatKGjvGWvD5eZ-G4wSS_ThQzRiogqy), collected by Yasmine and colleagues, and The paper connected to the “Songs on the Nile” playlist (https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&amp;hl=en&amp;user=PVB-KxkAAAAJ&amp;citation_for_view=PVB-KxkAAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC) The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having...

6. 

   4 Aug 2026

   Capitalism, Fascism, and the University

   This week we are joined by Beverly Bain, Rinadlo Walcott, and Uahikea Maile who talk with us about the university as a key pillar of capitalism and the state. We discuss the lip service paid to decolonization efforts, the ways in which Black and indigenous scholars are co-opted and captured by university institutions, and what possibilities exist for envisioning knowledge sharing beyond the framework of the university. Beverly Bain is a Black queer radical feminist scholar, anti-capitalist, activist, organizer abolitionist, and public intellectual. She has over forty years of experience in feminist anti-violence and anti-racism communities in Canada and globally. Bain frequently delivers national and international lectures on gender, anti-Blackness, sexuality, abolition, and liberation, and she is regularly interviewed on police violence, Black queer organizing, and defunding and abolishing police. Bain is published in numerous books, including Queerly Canadian 2nd edition (https://canadianscholars.ca/book/queerly-canadian-second-edition/) (2022), We Still Demand: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles (https://www.ubcpress.ca/we-still-demand) (2017), and journals, including Canadian Women’s Studies, Fireweed, and The Conversation. Rinaldo Walcott is Professor and Chair of Africana and American Studies at the University of Buffalo. His research is in the area of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, gender and sexuality with interests in nations, nationalisms, multiculturalism, policy and education broadly defined. As an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar, Walcott has published in a wide range of venues on everything from literature to film, to theatre to music to policy. His most recent books include The Long Emancipation: Moving Towards Freedom (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-long-emancipation) (2021) and On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition (https://www.biblioasis.com/shop/non-fiction/cultural-criticism/on-property/) (2021). Uahikea Maile is a Kanaka Maoli scholar, strategist, and practitioner from Maunawili on the island of O‘ahu. He is assistant professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Maile’s forthcoming book with Duke University Press is entitled Gifts of Sovereignty: Capitalism, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Politics in Hawaiʻi. They are the vice president of Red Media (https://redmedia.press/), research fellow with the Yellowhead Institute (https://yellowheadinstitute.org/), and a member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (https://www.anti-imperialists.com/) and Hui Aloha ʻĀina o Honolulu (http://www.kahaa.org/). The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame...

7. 

   21 Jul 2026

   Archaeology, Apartheid, and War

   This week we are joined by Nelly Abboud and a member of the collective Archaeologists Against Apartheid, to discuss the ongoing destruction of cultural heritage in Lebanon and Palestine by Israeli forces. We dive into the colonialist and imperialist roots of archaeology as a discipline, the ways in which Zionists have mobilized archaeology to legitimize settler-colonialist agendas, the effectiveness of UNESCO World Heritage designations, and whether archaeology can become a tool of decolonial liberation. Nelly P. Abboud is a Lebanese archaeologist and museum educator. She is founder of Museolab, an organization promoting cultural heritage preservation through experiential learning methods. Her research interests include museum education, collective memory, cultural heritage protection, illicit traffic, community engagement, and post-conflict heritage documentation in Lebanon. Our second guest, “S”, is a member of the collective Archaeologists Against Apartheid, which is a decentralized and international organization of archaeologists and heritage professionals committed to exposing and combating the intersections of archaeology, apartheid, and genocide. Additional Resources: Alfred, Taiaiake. 2023. It’s All About the Land: Collected Talks and Interviews on Indigenous Resurgence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. El-Haj, Nadia Abu. 2001. Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Albanese, Francesca. 2025. “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – (A/HRC/59/23) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/).” See Nelly’s Everyday Orientalism post on (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2026/04/02/silence-is-not-neutral-an-archaeological-update-from-lebanon/) UNESCO and the Lebanese sites added to the enhanced protections list. For more information on the Save Sebastia movement: https://www.instagram.com/savesebastia/ (https://www.instagram.com/savesebastia/) The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame Salame (https://madamesalame.bandcamp.com/album/madame-salame) – Decaf

8. 

   7 Jul 2026

   The Corporate University

   In this episode we are joined by Muhannad Ayyash, Heidi Matthews, and Nathan Kalman-Lamb to discuss the corporatization of North American universities and their crisis of legitimacy in the wake of the pro-Palestinian encampments that protested the ongoing genocide of October 7th, 2023. Warning us against false hope, they share with us the challenges and potentialities for academics working from within Canadian universities complicit in genocide and war in Palestine, Iran, and beyond. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada where he is Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is also a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He is the author of Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel (Columbia University Press, 2025) and A Hermeneutics of Violence (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Heidi Matthews is Assistant Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. She researches and teaches in the areas of international criminal law, the law of war, international legal history and political theory. Her work theorizes contemporary shifts in the practice and discourse of the global legal regulation of political violence, with particular attention to history and gender, as well as political, critical and aesthetic theory. Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, where he teaches on social theory and the sociology of sport. His work appears in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Toronto Star, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other venues. He is co-host of The End of Sport podcast and co-author of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, 2024). Additional Resources: The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame Salame (https://madamesalame.bandcamp.com/album/madame-salame) – Decaf

9. 

   22 Jun 2026

   Migration as Anchorage: A Palestinian Family in London

   In this episode we are joined by Michelle Obeid to discuss her book, Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London, and what it was like to write about a Palestinian family seeking anchorage while abroad in London—both before and after the escalation of the Palestinian genocide in October of 2023. She shares with us more about the Gazzawi family, the role of food in cultural studies, and what the ongoing process of recreating home looks like for Palestinians. In developing an anthropology of anchorage, Michelle focuses on “everyday practices that create a sense of holding fast in otherwise fluid times and place.” Michelle Obeid is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her research explores postwar sociality, livelihoods, borders, kinship, migration, and food, with a focus on how people create home, community, and belonging amid uncertainty. She is the author of Border Lives: An Ethnography of a Lebanese Town in Changing Times (https://brill.com/display/title/54467?srsltid=AfmBOorHN9yzYJS3Y6dMVudnrFaSlQ8cWfMjkOK1M75Mesej-pqiIIHn) (Brill 2019) and Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London (https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ObeidMigration) (Berghahn 2025). Michelle's book can be downloaded for free from Berghahn Press (https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ObeidMigration). Excerpts from Girish's students used with permission. Additional Resources: Hammad, Isabella. 2024. Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative. New York: Penguin Random House. Said, Edward. 1994. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Pantheon Books. Aly, Ramy. 2015. Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity. London: Pluto Press. Mahmoud Darwish quote from 1996 interview (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/271/article/734499/pdf): Darwish, Mahmoud, Liana Badr, Zakariyya Muhammad, Mundher Jaber, Amira El-Zein, Carolyn Forche. 2019. “Our Present Does Not Decide Either to Begin or to End.” The Massachusetts Review 60.3: 425–438. Said, Edward. 1979. The Question of Palestine. New York: Times Books. El-Haddad, Laila, and Maggie Schmitt. 2021. The Gaza Kitchen (https://thegazakitchen.com/): A Palestinian Culinary Journey. New York: Just World Books. Laila El-Haddad on Unforked: “Gastronationalism (https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1022-unforked/episode/15853084-gastronationalism)” The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism. (https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/) Host: Girish Daswani Editor and producer: Taylor Stark Research assistant: Sophie Plotkin Intro music: Madame Salame (https://madamesalame.bandcamp.com/album/madame-salame) – Decaf

10. 

    8 Jun 2026

    Orientalism and the Media

    In this episode we are joined by Samira Mohyeddin to discuss the many ways in which contemporary news outlets are complicit in the orientalizing of Palestine and Iran. She shares with us the harms of legacy media, the power of informed, ethical journalism, and some of the work she’s done as the founder of On the Line Media. Samira Mohyeddin is an award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has a Master of Arts in Modern Middle Eastern History from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of Genocide Studies from the Zoryan Institute. For nearly a decade, she was a producer and host at Canada's national public broadcaster, CBC Radio and CBC Podcasts. She resigned from the CBC in November 2023 and is now the founder and managing editor of On The Line Media (https://www.youtube.com/@SamiraMohyeddin), focusing on critical and contextual journalism coupled with intimate conversations and informed commentary. She is also a founding member of the Canadian Journalists for Justice in Palestine. (https://cjjp.org/) Additional Resources: Fisk, Robert. 2005. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Fourth Estate. Lukacs, Martin, Dania Majid, and Jason Toney. 2025. When Genocide Wasn’t News: How Canadian Media Covered Up the Destruction of Gaza. Montreal: Breach Books. Said, Edward. 1979. The Question of Palestine. New York: Times Books. Follow Samira Mohyeddin on Instagram @smohyeddin On The Line Media Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cw/OnTheLineMedia) On The Line Media Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@SamiraMohyeddin) Canadian Journalists for Justice in Palestine (https://cjjp.org/) Study by The Breach: Lukacs, Martin, Katia Lo Innes, and Ben Cuthbert. 2023. “Palestinian deaths count for less in Canada’s newspapers. Data proves it.” (https://breachmedia.ca/palestinian-deaths-canadian-newspapers-data/) The Breach. Quote from Robert Fisk: Mirgani, Suzi. 2010. “Robert Fisk on Western Journalism and the Middle East.” (https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/robert-fisk-western-journalism-and-middle-east/) Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University Qatar. Unforked Podcast – “Gastronationalism” (https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1022-unforked/episode/15853084-gastronationalism) Canadian Museum of Human Rights – Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present (https://humanrights.ca/exhibition/palestine-uprooted-nakba-past-and-present). Exhibition opens on June 27, 2026, in Winnipeg. Samira’s coverage of the People’s Circle for Palestine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKeR-lNgHU) Help fund Samira’s Palestine Solidarity Encampment documentary (https://chuffed.org/project/130955-peoples-circle-for-palestine-documentary) The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast...

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