Gianni Sievers

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

out today from @ucpress.bsky.social comes with words and a map. can be displayed and/or read.

The Arab World’s First Indie Record Label A Lebanese family’s global brand reflects the story of 20th-century Europe — and its relationship with the Middle East

“The Lebanese label produced hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings in Berlin up until the eve of World War II.”

Anna-Theresa Bachmann and Hannah El-Hitami explore the history of Baidaphon for @newlinesmag.bsky.social

Nahostforschung: Wachsende Selbstzensur unter Nahostforschern: Studie Eine Studie dokumentiert die wachsende Tendenz zur Selbstzensur bei Nahostthemen an den Hochschulen. Die Wissenschaftler fühlen sich bedroht und schweigen.

"Das „Klima der Vorsicht“ herrscht längst in der Breite des Systems."

Sehr guter und fairer Beitrag von Gerald Wagner in der @faznet.bsky.social zu unserer Studie über die Lage in der deutschen Nahost-Wissenschaft seit dem 7. Oktober www.faz.net/aktuell/karr...

CFP: International Conference
New Perspectives on South-Asian and Middle Eastern Connections in the 20th Century
9-10 May 2026
Institut français d’archéologie orientale (Ifao)
in collaboration with Orient-Institut Beirut
Antoinette Ferrand (Ifao) & Simon Conrad (OIB)

Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy - The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

Navina Haidar and Marika Sardar's 2015 MET exhibition catalog "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy" is now available for free online

'Irreversible damage' feared after further Dutch budget cuts Reduction in inflation compensation adds to pressures on higher education and research, universities say

'The Netherlands’ caretaker government, which will remain in place under outgoing prime minister Dick Schoof until October’s general election, announced this week that universities’ 2026 compensation for inflation will be cut by up to €25 million (£21.7 million).' 1/2

Neues vom Wissenschaftsstandort #Berlin: Etatkürzungen, Reduktion der Studienplätze & Stellensperren. Ach je…

Monsun bringt Zerstörung: Schlimmste Überschwemmungen seit 1988 in Pakistan In Pakistan haben Fluten katastrophale Ausmaße erreicht. Behörden sprechen von den schlimmsten Überschwemmungen seit 1988. Der Wiederaufbau dürfte Milliarden kosten.

Schlimmste Flut in Pakistan seit 1988, schlimmste Waldbrände in Spanien und Portugal. Die Klimakrise ist da, und sie wird noch schlimmer werden.
Wir aber tun so, als sei die Frage nach Wurst- und Fleischessen oder Gendersternchen das größte Problem. /2

www.faz.net/aktuell/gese...

Lost in Extraterrestrial Translation The University celebrates the success of area studies alumni, all the while erasing the programs that made those careers possible.

My op-ed in the @chicagomaroon.bsky.social on the University of Chicago’s appalling plans to gut the humanities and possibly eliminate the South Asian studies department chicagomaroon.com/48353/viewpo...

One crucial factor for the decline is the flight of the moneyed Hindu and Sikh elite during Partition, says Kabir Altaf, researching on the topic. These landed & merchant families had formed the core patronage base for classical music in Pakistan.

scroll.in/magazine/108...

By Malini Nair

The enormity of the attacks on Ukraine is impossible to grasp. Let me show you the horror of a single day | Oleksandr Mykhed The rumble, the explosions and the deaths: they are so frequent that they seem normal. It’s a fight to protect our homes, our cities and the psyche, says author Oleksandr Mykhed

‘In the fourth year of the invasion, I don’t know how to write about the shelling of my home town. Photos of destroyed buildings on social media no longer have the power to shock. The subject matter and angles of the photos have become ordinary.’
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Brinkley Messick seated second from the right.

I am sad to learn of the passing of Brinkley Messick, a great scholar and ethnographer, a dear colleague with whom I worked very closely with for more than a decade. Here he is at a panel celebrating his wonderful book *Shari'a Scripts: A Historical Anthropology* in 2018.

‘Can you tell us how he died?’: Mohamed Salah criticises Uefa over tribute to ‘Palestinian Pelé’ Footballer Suleiman al-Obeid was killed in an Israeli attack in southern Gaza last week, according to Palestine Football Association

“Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?”
www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Police Conduct Raids Across J&K After Government Bans 25 Books Bookstores across Kashmir were raided by police today following a ban on 25 books by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.

“Book stores across Kashmir were raided by police today following a ban on 25 books by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. Most of these books are written by acclaimed writes and historians on Kashmir. “

www.ndtv.com/india-news/p...

"In the pursuit of a historical fantasy, today’s rulers want to erase the reality that modern India would be unrecognisable without the imprint of the Mughals."

scroll.in/article/1085...

✍️Richard Eaton

Columbia: 'an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions.' (Rashid Khalidi)

"Erinnerungspolitik nicht verordnen" -Der Historiker Jürgen Zimmerer im Gespräch

Kulturstaatsminister Weimer hat angekündigt, Kolonialismus nicht in das Gedenkstättenkonzept des Bundes aufzunehmen, da es den Holocaust relativiere. Das ist falsch und erfüllt AfD-Positionen.
Darüber uvm habe ich mit den DLF gesprochen. 🎤👇

www.deutschlandfunk.de/erinnerungsp...

Protesting over Gaza’s starvation feels like screaming into a void – but we mustn’t stop | Nesrine Malik Political platitudes and a few trucks of aid won’t save the children dying now. But they show leaders can’t ignore public opinion for ever, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

Once again @nesrinemalik.bsky.social with simple moral clarity cutting through the noise. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Columbia Struck a Deal to Save Research Funding. How Do Its Researchers Feel About That? Faculty and others expressed a mixture of relief and frustration over the deal, under which the university will pay over $200 million to have most of its research funding restored.

I said what I said: "Professors are considering leaving Columbia because of the settlement, said Jacoby and Dixon-Román. 'It’s very demoralizing to teach in a university that’s, from my perspective, acceding to authoritarian demands,' Jacoby said."

www.chronicle.com/article/colu...

Slaves in Paris — Harvard University Press A pioneering biographical study of enslaved people and their struggle for freedom in prerevolutionary Paris, by an award-winning historian of France and the French Empire.In the decades leading up to ...

Historian friends, all who like reading history, and connoisseurs of writing, research, and thought--I know it's hard to think about the past when the present is so ghastly, but you should do yourselves a favor and read Miranda Spieler's AMAZING second book www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Born #onthisday in Berlin in 1892, the philosopher, literary critic, and essayist Walter Benjamin. Read an essay by Anca Pusca on the relevance of Benjamin’s oeuvre in a digital age, and the implications of his work entering the public domain. publicdomainreview.org/essay/o... #otd

Darjeeling tea is world-famous — but the workers who make it are underpaid, overworked, and overlooked. As the industry faces climate change and crisis, it's the workers who bear the brunt.

scroll.in/article/1084...

Nolina Minj reports

The right wants us to think Britain is on the verge of ethnic conflict. The truth is worse than that | John Merrick In blaming problems on migrant ‘outsiders’, prophets of decline are paving the way for harder borders and mass deportations, says John Merrick, deputy editor of the Break-Down

Very important piece on how our right wing press & think tanks are creating the space for the most extreme, far right policies, with remorseless scapegoating of immigrants & Muslims:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My remembrance of my teacher, C.M. Naim

C. M. Naim and the Many Lives of Urdu He stood, ultimately, for what might be called the aesthetics of ethical clarity. His writing was never merely beautiful, it was responsible.

Narendra Pachkhédé on C.M. Naim who "refused both the nostalgia of the diaspora and the sentimentality of cultural nationalism. His was a critical love – tender, exacting, and utterly unsentimental."

I wrote a brief 'Life Stories' text about the Indian anticolonial activist A. C. N. Nambiar and his activities in 1920s Berlin for Dekoloniale. The beautifully crafted interactive map is an exciting way to tell this story.
www.dekoloniale.de/en/map?kind=...

Indira Gandhi declared a national Emergency on June 25 in 1975.

scroll.in/reel/1083796/

The Union government said the day will be marked as “Samvidhan Hatya Diwas” .

Nandini Ramnath writes about how it's ironic, given the sustained attacks on the freedom of expression on its watch.

Excited to see the website is now live for my forthcoming book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (PUP, March 2026)
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

‘Academia normalizes poverty as a “rite of passage.” It’s not character-building—it’s exclusionary. We need to reject this culture, fund our people, and prioritize equity at every career stage.’