NEW: MER 317, "Reconstruction and Ruin" Dear Friends and Comrades, Today we are releasing our Winter 2025 issue of Middle East Report, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” This issue includes essays, dispatches and interviews that offer a grounded examination of the impact of war and reconstruction efforts (or lack thereof) on everyday people across the region. From Gaza James Ryan • 2 min read
Kenneth L. Brown On June 7, 2025, the world lost Kenneth (Ken) Brown—an early MERIP contributor, journalist and wayward intellectual—after a long illness. While the name Kenneth Brown may not ring a bell for the current generation of Middle East Studies scholars, Ken was an extraordinary scholar and individual. A graduate Edmund Burke • 2 min read
Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, November 2022. Safin Hamid/AFP via Getty Images Building from Scrap, Building Through Crisis On Umut Kuruüzüm’s materialist ethnography of war and reconstruction, 'Building from Scrap: War, Recycling, and Labor in Iraqi Kurdistan.' Mujge Küçükkeleş • 11 min read