Unlocking Academia

About Unlocking Academia

We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team of professionals in the publishing industry who are constantly looking for ways to make our clients grow. With our innovative marketing approaches, we put publishers in the spotlight and leverage their brand awareness to drive sales. Based in the renowned publishing city of Leiden, we eat, sleep and breathe publishing here!

Publisher

Clavis Aurea

Category

arts · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Oct 2024

Latest episode

11 Feb 2026

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Feb 2026

   Mikkel Krause Frantzen, "The Birth of the Financial Thriller" (Edinburgh University Press, 2025)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, host Tarin Ahmed is joined by historian and cultural critic Mikkel Frantzen to explore his new book The Birth of a Financial Thriller: Making a Killing in the 1970s (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Together they explore how the financial thriller genre emerged in the tumultuous economic climate of the 1970s and why its narrative strategies still shape how we imagine markets, risk and the drama of capital today. Frantzen guides us through the historical forces that gave rise to the genre, from the breakdown of Bretton Woods and oil crises to the rise of speculative finance and the globalisation of markets. Along the way, he shows how early works such as Paul Erdman’s The Billion Dollar Sure Thing set the template for novels where financial systems themselves become sites of mystery and suspense. Drawing on literary analysis, economic history and cultural critique, the conversation unpacks key moments and texts that defined the genre, and considers how thrillers about markets both reflect and influence broader cultural understandings of power, uncertainty and crisis. Listeners will come away with a deeper appreciation of how fiction and finance have been entwined since the late twentieth century, and why the financial thriller continues to resonate in an era of ongoing economic upheaval.They explore how the financial thriller genre emerged in the tumultuous economic climate of the 1970s and why its narrative strategies still shape how we imagine markets, risk and the drama of capital today.

2. 

   5 Dec 2025

   Hind Elhinnawy, "Secular Muslim Feminism: An Alternative Voice in the War of Ideas" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, your host, Tarin Ahmed, is joined by guest Dr Hind Elhinnawy, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Nottingham Trent University and co-director of the Critical Criminology and Social Justice Research Group. Discussing her book, Secular Muslim Feminism: An Alternative Voice in the War of Ideas (Bloomsbury 2024), they unpack the intellectual and personal motivations behind this work, tracing how over two decades of feminist activism and scholarship across the Middle East and Europe have informed Elhinnawy’s thinking. Secular Muslim Feminism explores how simplistic narratives of oppression and empowerment obscure the lived complexities of Muslim women’s experiences, and how the selective celebration of religious agency can sometimes reinforce the very patriarchal structures feminism seeks to dismantle. The episode also examines how the language of women’s rights has been appropriated by far-right and Islamophobic actors, and what it means to actively resist that co-option. At its core, Secular Muslim Feminism insists on a feminist politics that refuses easy alignment: one that will not be absorbed into Western liberal paternalism, nor constrained by conservative religious authority. This episode invites listeners behind the scenes of that argument, opening up the tensions, risks, and possibilities of staking out a feminist position that sits deliberately at the margins, yet speaks urgently to some of the most pressing debates of our time.

3. 

   2 Sept 2025

   Mutaz al-Khatib, "Key Classical Works on Islamic Ethics" (Brill, 2024)

   In this episode of Unlocking Academia, host Raja Aderdor speaks with Dr. Mutaz Al-Khatib, Associate Professor at the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics and Director of the Master’s program in Applied Islamic Ethics at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Together, they explore Key Classical Works on Islamic Ethics (Brill, 2024), a groundbreaking edited volume that brings together foundational texts spanning hadith, fiqh, kalam, Sufism, and Islamic medicine. Dr. Al-Khatib traces the intellectual lineage of Islamic ethical thought, highlighting how these texts offer practical guidance for lived moral practice while challenging dominant Greco-centric frameworks in ethical theory. The conversation delves into the interdisciplinary nature of Islamic ethics, its historical evolution, and why understanding ethics as a lived tradition remains vital in contemporary scholarship. Listeners will gain insight into the methods behind compiling and editing classical texts, the thematic threads that connect diverse genres, and the enduring relevance of Islamic ethical thought for scholars, students, and anyone interested in the intersections of religion, law, and philosophy. Lyrical, insightful, and rigorously scholarly, this episode invites audiences to engage with the rich, evolving tradition of Islamic ethics and consider its impact on both historical and modern contexts. We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team dedicated to advancing academic publishing and sharing groundbreaking scholarship with scholars, students, and enthusiasts worldwide. Based in the historic publishing hub of Leiden, we eat, sleep, and breathe publishing!

4. 

   28 Jun 2025

   Johanna Drucker, "Affluvia: the Toxic Off-Gassing of Affluent Culture" (Bridge Art, 2025)

   Author Johanna Drucker discusses her book *Affluvia*, exploring the ecological costs of daily routines and revealing connections to industrial production, human rights, and environmental destruction in an interview with Tarin Ahmed.

5. 

   1 Jun 2025

   Basma Al Dajani, "The Arab Andalusian Love Poetry: A Study of the Interaction Between Place and Man Through Time" (AU Cairo Press, 1994)

   Professor Basma A. S. Dajani discusses Arab-Andalusian love poetry with Raja Aderdor, exploring its cultural impact, the influence of place, and the works of women poets like Wallada bint al-Mustakfi in this interview.

6. 

   10 May 2025

   William Jennings, "Dibia's World: Life on an Early Sugar Plantation" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, Tarin Ahmed, the host, is joined by guest, William Jennings, a senior lecturer in French at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, and author of Dibia's World.: Life on an Early Sugar Plantation (Liverpool UP, 2023). William discusses the importance of names, voice and the community life of a hundred slaves on an early sugar plantation. Dibia's World follows the story of Dibia, an educated man in Africa, stolen across the sea and sold into slavery. He spent the rest of his life on a sugar plantation, where he worked with Agoüya, drank Aboré's rum, married Izabelle and had a son named Paul. This book tells the story of the community he lived in with a hundred others in a colonial outpost of the Caribbean. It depicts the everyday life of enslaved Africans and Native Americans in remarkable detail, showing their names, relationships, skills, health and interactions, as they contended with and resisted their enslavement. Most studies of plantation life examine well-established colonies in the century before abolition. This work provides a counterpoint by depicting the founding population of an African-American community in the early years of the industrial sugar plantation complex. Drawing on a planter's manuscript, shipping records, missionary accounts and seventeenth-century scraps of paper, Dibia's World will appeal to specialists as well as general readers interested in the early Atlantic world, Creole societies, slavery and African-American history.

7. 

   28 Mar 2025

   Marc Owen Jones, "Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media" (Hurst/Oxford UP, 2021)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, host Raja Aderdor sits down with Marc Owen Jones, associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, to explore the complex world of digital deception in the Middle East, as outlined in his book Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media (Hurst/Oxford UP, 2021). Marc draws on years of experience growing up in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, as well as living and working in Sudan, Syria, Germany, and the UK. His perspective offers both depth and global context. In the episode, he discusses how social media has become a tool for manipulation, with bots, fake accounts, and disinformation campaigns shaping public discourse and limiting civil society. The conversation explores how these tactics function, their consequences, and the growing challenge of digital authoritarianism. Timely and insightful, this episode highlights the importance of understanding the role of digital technologies in shaping truth, politics, and media in the Middle East and beyond. We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team constantly looking for ways to help academic publishing grow and to promote groundbreaking publications to scholars, students, and enthusiasts globally. Based in the renowned publishing city of Leiden, we eat, sleep, and breathe publishing!

8. 

   25 Mar 2025

   ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, "A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years" (NYU Press, 2022)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, Tarin Ahmed, the host, unpacks the translation of this incredible text with Tim Mackintosh-Smith, a Senior Research Fellow at New York University in Abu Dhabi, the translator of this publication. Tim shares his story of how he first came across the original source text, his journey of translation, and even anecdotes on friendships and wonderful memories made along the way. A Physician on the Nile (NYU Press, 2022) begins as a description of everyday life in Egypt at the turn of the seventh/thirteenth century, before becoming a harrowing account of famine and pestilence. Written by the polymath and physician ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, and intended for the Abbasid caliph al-Nāṣir, the first part of the book offers detailed descriptions of Egypt’s geography, plants, animals, and local cuisine, including a recipe for a giant picnic pie made with three entire roast lambs and dozens of chickens. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s text is also a pioneering work of ancient Egyptology, with detailed observations of Pharaonic monuments, sculptures, and mummies. An early and ardent champion of archaeological conservation, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf condemns the vandalism wrought by tomb-robbers and notes with distaste that Egyptian grocers price their goods with labels written on recycled mummy-wrappings. The book’s second half relates his horrific eyewitness account of the great famine that afflicted Egypt in the years 597–598/1200–1202. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf was a keen observer of humanity, and he offers vivid first-hand depictions of starvation, cannibalism, and a society in moral free-fall. A Physician on the Nile contains great diversity in a small compass, distinguished by the acute, humane, and ever-curious mind of its author. It is rare to be able to hear the voice of such a man responding so directly to novelty, beauty, and tragedy.

9. 

   8 Mar 2025

   Ibn Butlan, "The Doctors' Dinner Party: A Satirical Novella " (NYU Press, 2023)

   In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, Raja Aderdor, the host, delves deeper into this fascinating work with Jeremy Farrell, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Leiden University, who co-authored a translation of this novella. Jeremy shares his insights into the satire, the medical practices described, and how Ibn Buṭlān's critique resonates with today's debates on medicine and misinformation. The Doctors' Dinner Party: A Satirical Novella by Ibn Buṭlān (NYU Press, 2023) is an eleventh-century work that presents a sharp critique of the medical profession. Set in a medical milieu, the story follows a young doctor invited to dinner with a group of older, supposedly more experienced physicians. As the conversation unfolds, their incompetence becomes obvious, and Ibn Buṭlān uses humor to expose the hypocrisy and pretensions of these quack doctors. Written by the accomplished physician Ibn Buṭlān, the novella not only satirizes the medical profession but also showcases the author’s deep technical knowledge of medicine, including practices like surgery, bloodletting, and medicines. He weaves in references to the great thinkers and physicians of the ancient world, such as Hippocrates, Galen, and Socrates, adding layers of depth to the text. The novella is structured with a question-and-answer format associated with technical literature, while also incorporating verse and subtexts that hint at the older physicians' infatuation with their young guest. This balance of literary parody and social critique makes The Doctors' Dinner Party a rich and entertaining read. A bilingual Arabic-English edition, The Doctors' Dinner Party remains a significant work that continues to offer both humor and sharp critique, making it relevant to modern readers in discussions around medicine, ethics, and social norms.

10. 

    2 Dec 2024

    Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs "Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice"

    Academic experts translate and contextualize the timeless wisdom of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs "Kalīlah and Dimnah" fables, revealing profound insights into ethics, leadership, and the human condition.

11. 

    29 Nov 2024

    Johanna Drucker, "Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

    Johanna Drucker shares her groundbreaking research on Iliazd, a pioneering modernist artist, revealing how his innovative work redefined modernism for future generations.

12. 

    8 Oct 2024

    The Ideology of Democratic Athens

    We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team constantly looking for ways to make the academic publishing industry grow and to promote groundbreaking academic publications to scholars, students and enthusiasts globally. Based in the renowned publishing city of Leiden, we eat, sleep and breathe publishing! Matteo Barbato’s The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) investigates the construction of democratic ideology in Classical Athens through a study of the social memory of Athens’ mythical past. The debate on Athenian democratic ideology has long been polarised around two extremes. Matteo Barbato addresses this dichotomy by providing a unitary approach to Athenian democratic ideology. Analysing four different myths from the perspective of the New Institutionalism, he demonstrates that Athenian democratic ideology was a fluid set of ideas, values and beliefs shared by the Athenians as a result of a constant ideological practice influenced by the institutions of the democracy. He shows that this process entailed the active participation of both the masses and the elite and enabled the Athenians to produce multiple and compatible ideas about their community and its mythical past.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

506,488

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 29 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

23

Social presence

0

YouTube

86

Engagement

0