Marya Hannun

2025 Program — DCPFAF The 2025 DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival program is LIVE!

The DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival starts next week, and it's not to be missed. Tickets here www.dcpfaf.org/2025

Cover of the book Nile Nightshade with the title and author name (Anny Gaul) against a dark background with at least seven beautifully lusciously red drawn tomatoes with their vines and leaves

Introducing NILE NIGHTSHADE: AN EGYPTIAN CULINARY HISTORY OF THE TOMATO, coming this October from @ucpress.bsky.social. Read on for details about a preorder promotion I'm running to raise money for mutual aid, a zine giveaway, and a preview of the book. 🧵: (1/9)

Courts of Exclusion—Working-Class Masculinity and Anti-Afghan Racism in Iran - MERIP n 2016, Gol Agha, a ball boy and worker at a private tennis club in Tajrish—an affluent neighborhood in northern Tehran—went to an administrative office in Karaj to receive a […]

Read about the interplay of working-class masculinity, anti-Afghan racism & tennis in Iran in my piece on @merip.bsky.social. Immense gratitude for Gol Agha Azizi, Farnaz & Mohammad Reza Jurabchian & @maryahannun.bsky.social. This piece was finalized before June 13, 2025.
merip.org/2025/06/bann...

Weeka: Nile Valley Okra Much of the history of the tomato in Egypt — the subject of Nile Nightshade, my forthcoming book — is oriented north and east. The tomato linked Turkey and Egypt through Ottoman cuisine’s embrace o…

My latest post is all about weeka, a technique for cooking okra that is shared between Egyptian and Sudanese food cultures: cookingwithgaul.com/2025/07/27/w...

https://www.alquds.co.uk/ثقافة-الكاسيت-التاريخ-الاجتماعي-للصو/

To see Arabic-language media outlets engaging with this exploration of Egypt’s cassette culture means the world to me, and to have the book be mentioned alongside the work of Lucie Ryzova and @annygaul.bsky.social is an honor. Alf shukr to al-Quds al-Arabi for this thoughtful review!

*Podcast Alert* I had the extraordinary pleasure to discuss my book Sufi Civilities (@stanfordpress.bsky.social ) with the delightful @bcheves.bsky.social for @ajammc.bsky.social find our conversation on their website or Spotify #afghanistan #anthropology #sufism

"We resist by taking part in the hard exercise of thinking critically about the war and how we stop it. Stopping this war (and future wars) is a result and not an action in itself, a result of us creating the conditions for the people of Sudan to live, produce and reproduce cooperatively."

"This is really counter revolution at its logical conclusion. Like the soft landing, the war is meant to reset Sudan. The result could be the disintegration of the social, political and economic fabric of the country and the removal of the political will of the people."

Elnaiem noted "an ongoing issue with labor organizing in Sudan: to draw on the labor movement in the mobilizing stages of an uprising but then grant workers no real say in the political agenda that follows. This happened in 1964. It happened in 1985. And it also happened in 2019."

Sustaining Sudan’s Revolution–A Conversation with Rabab Elnaiem - MERIP Rabab Elnaiem is a Sudanese activist, labor organizer and former spokesperson for an alliance of labor unions, currently based in the United States. On April 2, 2024, she spoke to MERIP’s managing edi...

On the six year anniversary of the Sudanese uprisings, revisiting this conversation with Rabab Elnaiem for @merip.bsky.social on 'Sustaining Sudan's Revolution' in the context of the current counterrevolutionary war. merip.org/2024/04/a-co...

Side note: my dog thinks every package is for him.

A couple of years ago, through an exchange with Stacy, we learned that she writes about my Jiddo Sami’s uncles, who operated a textile factory in Madeira. My great grandmother married and stayed in Lebanon/Syria when they went to live in Brooklyn (and then from there to Madeira).

Just got my copy of @sfahrenthold.bsky.social’s richly detailed and beautifully stitched together book: Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work and the Syrian American Working Class. 1/

Killed by Israel for his complicity in not starving the population.

Again sending around this starter pack courtesy of @viewfromargus.bsky.social

go.bsky.app/3h6n3YC

Reading this alongside Dylan Saba’s prescient analysis from last March www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

This reminds me of our early twitter days!

This is happening now in Beirut.

X, as horrific as it got, is a loudspeaker for the silenced. I am still there because of it. We must get intentional about circulating the horrors in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan if we intend to make this the just alternative.

Joe Stork and MERIP - MERIP In light of his passing, a guide to MERIP founder, Joe Stork's contributions to the publication.

In light of the recent loss of our co-founder and longtime editor Joe Stork, we’ve compiled a short guide to his writing at MERIP and elsewhere. Here’s hoping you find it useful! merip.org/2024/11/joe-...

Friends and comrades, welcome! We have a MERIP starter pack for you! Follow our contributors, editors, staff and fellow travelers!

For those in NY: I’ll be talking about my book (plus some implications for the current context in Palestine) next Wednesday evening 11/20 at the CUNY Grad Center, with Jillian Schwedler as my discussant: www.gc.cuny.edu/events/book-...

The only nice news I’ve seen out of the US since last Tuesday…

Here it is! A Starter Pack for Middle East News

A couple things
1) Inclusion in this list should not be taken as an endorsement, this is to crystalize the MENA ecosystem so it can grow

2) Limit's 150, so if I missed you, hit me in the replies & I'll get you in the next one
go.bsky.app/2pjNYfP

Tonight! Looking forward to this discussion and Special Issue launch at LSE

Thank you friend!

312 - MERIP Issue Editors: Lisa Hajjar, Basil Farraj, Kanwal Hameed and Jacob Mundy. MER’s fall issue, ‘Carceral Realities and Freedom Dreams,’ centers carceralism—that is forms of unfreedom—and organized resista...

And more... @merip.bsky.social merip.org/magazine/312/

Leila Katibah with a special report: 'The Genocide Will Be Automated—Israel, AI and the Future of War' merip.org/2024/10/the-...

Europe’s Prison Guard—How the EU Is Integrating Tunisia into Its Violent Anti-Migrant Cordon - MERIP The carceral logic behind EU migration policies in North Africa.

A really incisive look at the role of North African states in playing prison guard duty for Europe when it comes to migration, by Fadil Aliriza merip.org/2024/10/euro...