MER Article Editor's Picks Babar, Zahra, ed. Arab Migrant Communities in the GCC (London: Oxford University Press, 2016). Bassiouni, M. Cherif. Chronicles of the Egyptian Revolution and Its Aftermath, 2011-2016 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Behrouzan, Orkideh. Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016). Campbell, Madeline Otis. The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Barbara Harlow I first met Professor Barbara Harlow (1948-2017) in the autumn of 1992, while conducting field research in Egypt, when she gave her talk at the American University in Cairo on her new book, Barred: Women, Writing and Political Detention (Wesleyan University Press, 1992). This book examined the struggle of female Kamran Asdar Ali • 4 min read
MER Article Open Hillel Lodge 5 at Swarthmore College is a dignified building in gray stone, the aesthetic match of much of the rest of the bucolic campus located 20 miles outside Philadelphia. The structure houses three floors supporting Jewish student life: a kosher kitchen, a lounge and a library whose walls are heavy w Mimi Kirk • 14 min read
MER Article The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back In January 2015, Christie’s announced that a painting by the Palestinian Suleiman Mansour, Camel of Burdens II (Jamal al-Mahamil), would be the highlight of its annual auction of modern and contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish art held in Dubai. The piece was listed as the second version of the 19 Dina Ramadan • 12 min read
MER Article The Arab World’s Non-Linear Electricity Transitions For many, especially in the United States, the Arab world is closely associated with fossil fuels. But over the past several years, a raft of news articles, opinion pieces and analyses have hailed the advent of renewable energy—especially solar power—in Arab countries. Many such pieces open with ima Zachary Cuyler • 19 min read
MER Article Into the Emergency Maze It was a sunny and warm day in February 2015, in the midst of an otherwise atypically rainy and cold Sicilian winter. Awate and Drissa sat next to one other on the edge of the covered balcony at the small reception center for asylum seekers where they lived. Both wore headphones but their bodies mov Silvia Pasquetti • 14 min read
MER Article Municipal Politics in Lebanon The municipal system has been a key pillar of debates on administrative decentralization, economic development and political participation in Lebanon. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, activists sought to stop the demolition of the 1924 Barakat Building on the basis that it was a heritage site. Ziad Abu-Rish • 22 min read
