So…what are we thinking?

So…what are we thinking?

Author: Kerning Cultures Network July 7, 2023 Duration: 0:59

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Dive into the rich, complex, and often surprising narratives that define a region through the lens of Kerning Cultures. This documentary-style series moves beyond headlines to deliver intimate, human-centered stories from across the Middle East and North Africa, and from the nuanced spaces in between. Each episode is a crafted audio journey, blending personal testimony with immersive sound design to explore themes of identity, history, innovation, and everyday life. You’ll hear from voices seldom amplified elsewhere-artists grappling with tradition, scientists tackling local challenges, families navigating change, and communities preserving memory. Produced by the Kerning Cultures Network, the podcast is built on deep reporting and a commitment to nuanced storytelling that challenges monolithic perspectives. It’s for anyone curious about the forces shaping cultures and societies, presented not as a lecture but as an experience. The result is a listening session that feels both expansive and personal, connecting global audiences to specific lives and places. Tune in for stories that are meticulously researched, emotionally resonant, and fundamentally human, reminding us that the most compelling tales are often found in the details we haven’t yet heard. This is a podcast dedicated to the art of narrative, offering a fresh and essential auditory window into a dynamic part of the world.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Kerning Cultures
Podcast Episodes
The Intifada Tapes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:16
Stuck in his Palestinian hometown of Jenin during lockdown, Mo'min Swaitat walked into an old music shop where thousands of dusty cassettes lined the walls. They contained decades of Palestinian music and field recording…
Rocket Man [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:33
In the 1960s, a college professor and his group of students were determined to build and launch rockets into space. And so, they did. This week, on Kerning Cultures, a story about the first-ever rocket launched from the…
Saving Mesopotamia's Marshes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:54
Azzam Alwash remembers the marshlands of southern Iraq as a magical place, where he would spend long days gliding through the thick reeds by boat with his father. But for decades now, the area has been under threat, so A…
The Perfect Renaissance Man [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:27
In the 1930s, the architect Nasri Khattar had an idea to singlehandedly overhaul the Arabic script. For the next 47 years, he worked day and night to get the world to adopt his writing system, Unified Arabic. Ultimately,…
The Sleeping Children [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:57
In 2012, a Yazidi family fled to Sweden in the hope of a better life, far from persecution. After nearly six troubled years struggling to seek asylum without proper paperwork, their traumatised daughter “fell asleep” - a…
The Rise and Fall of #MeToo in Egypt: Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:37
A warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and assault.As Egyptian women celebrated the arrest of serial predator and rapist Ahmed Bassam Zaki in the summer of 2020, another case came to light: An a…
The Rise and Fall of #MeToo in Egypt: Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:16
A warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and assault.In the summer of 2020, a 22-year-old Egyptian woman made the difficult decision to publicly call out her harasser on social media. In a moment…
Zabelle [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:20
In 1917, a musical prodigy called Zabelle Panosian recorded a song that captured the heartbreak of a generation of Armenian Americans in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. She toured the world, selling thousands of…
The Burning Library [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:43
In 1962 the library at the University of Algiers was burned to the ground, turning hundreds of thousands of books to dust. But it was overshadowed by Algeria's independence from the French, and was largely forgotten. So…
A note to listeners [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22
We're holding off on releasing this week's Kerning Cultures episode. Instead, we're sharing resources on how to help the crisis in Ukraine. You can read the full list here.We'll be back next week. Hosted on Acast. See ac…