In this episode, Belle interviews Dr. Annika Schmeding, Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and a Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), about her first book, Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan (Stanford University Press, 2023). In Sufi Civilities (and in our podcast episode), Schmeding examines how contemporary urban Sufi communities in Afghanistan deal with violence and transition. She addresses how threads from Afghanistan’s history shape the experiences and practices of Sufi communities in the present, particularly through ongoing poetic traditions, and she examines how they navigate tensions and ambiguities internally as well as amid the wider political and social context. Schmeding shows how Sufis in Afghanistan have adapted to political changes in recent decades, demonstrating resilience by creatively responding to and navigating historic shifts rather than remaining unchanged.
In this episode, Ali interviews Dr. Mana Kia, an Associate Professor in Columbia University’s department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies about...
In this episode, we discuss urban development in post-Soviet Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Rustin is joined by Elena Darjania, a Tbilisi-based architect and...
In this episode, Rustin speaks with Lindsey Stephenson, who is currently conducting postgraduate research at Princeton University, and the new host of Ajam's Indian...