Podcast
After the Beirut Blast
Luna Safwan is an independent journalist based in Beirut and the host of the “Beyond Politics” podcast. Anthony Elghossain is a lawyer and contributing editor at Newlines, also based in…
Syria: The Bashar Years
In this wide-ranging podcast, the writer and political analyst Rime Allaf recalls the death of Hafez al-Assad in Syria and traces the years of his son’s rule, from the Lebanon occupation to the Syrian revolution.
Who is Iran’s new president?
Arash Azizi, author of “Shadow Commander”, and Cameron Khansarinia, policy director at the National Union for Democracy in Iran, sit down for a podcast with Newlines’ Rasha Elass to discuss what the election of the “hanging judge” means for Iran.
Memory Wars and the Battle Against Reality
Peter Pomerantsev is the author of This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. In this podcast, he explores modern memory wars, and how they are attempting to remake reality, from Ukraine to America.
The Psychology of Political Violence
Nafees Hamid is a cognitive scientist of political violence who wrote “The Neuroscience of ‘Devoted Actors’ Within Extremist Groups”, on why people join violent groups. In this podcast, he explores similarities between jihadists who joined ISIS and the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol.
Telling a Syrian Fighter’s Story
Nick Foretek is the author of “The Philosopher’s Wine”, a long-read for Newlines that tells the story of several years in the life of one Syrian fighter. In this podcast, he discusses how he first met the fighter in Cairo, what prompted him to tell the story, why he made certain literary decisions – and whether he thinks the fighter is a sympathetic character.
Islam, Liberalism and Power
In a wide-ranging conversation with Newlines, Mustafa Akyol discusses what happened when he was arrested by the religious police in Malaysia; early Muslim reformers and the making of the first Muslim state; the coercive power of modern Islamic states and why he believes it is holding back the full flourishing of the Muslim world.