Best Mehfil Podcasts (2024)

1
In Love and War: Collective Memory and the Self 1:05:37

19d ago1:05:37

1:05:37

In Love and War: Collective Memory and the Self is our fifth conversation in a series centering the Warscapes anthology Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Daraja Press). Featuring Samina Najmi, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Beverly Parayno and Veruska Cantelli. Writing about war is often synonymous with writing about memory. Erasing narratives, stories a…

1
Poetry of Witness 1:13:43

29d ago1:13:43

1:13:43

Poetry of Witness is our fourth conversation in a series centering the Warscapes anthology Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Daraja Press). Featuring Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Jehan Bseiso and Meg Arenberg. What is the poet’s role in the event of the erasure of an entire people? Even as we deem certain acts of violence as “unspeakable” and “indescriba…

1
Wounds of War: Narrating Health and Healing 1:05:56

2M ago1:05:56

1:05:56

Wounds of War: Narrating Health and Healing is the third conversation in a series centering the Warscapes anthology Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Daraja Press). Featuring Zahra Moloo, Valerie Gruhn and Danielle Villasana. War brings the experiences and stories of health, health workers and emergency medicine into sharp focus. When one speaks ab…

1
Gaslighting as Method and Ways to Resist It 1:15:30

2M ago1:15:30

1:15:30

Gaslighting as Method and Ways to Resist It is the second conversation in a series centering the Warscapes anthology Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Daraja Press). Featuring Suzy Salamy, Suchitra Vijayan and Bhakti Shringarpure. Gaslighting is a term used to describe the process by which a person is manipulated into questioning their own reality.…

1
Unlearning War in the Classroom 1:10:18

3M ago1:10:18

1:10:18

Unlearning War in the Classroom is our first conversation in a series centering the Warscapes anthology Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Daraja Press). Featuring Sherry Zane, Veruska Cantelli and Bhakti Shringarpure. Wars, conflict and histories of violence have been continually framed as binary narratives between winners and losers, nation and no…

1
Boycott 4:42

4M ago4:42

4:42

Boycott - Aaj kal bhut se log bhut see cheezon ka boycott ker rehe hain or social media per aisi posts ki bhut bharmaar hai. Kiya humen boycott kerna chaye?By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Woh Bhi Kheriyat Se Hain, Hum Bhi 7:16

5M ago7:16

7:16

Ibn e Insha jee ki kitab " Ibn e Batuta k tàqub men " se aik dilchasp iqtebass jis ka unwan hai" Woh bhi kheriyat se hain, hum bhi". London men Ibn e insha, apni Jameel uddin Aalee sahib se mulqat ka hal biyan ker rehe hain.Pasand aye tu batyen.By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Hum Bhi Monh Men Zuban Rakhte Hain 9:22

5M ago9:22

9:22

Ibn e Insha ki kitab Ibn e Batota k Tàqub men se aik iqtebass" Hum bhi monh men zuban rakhte hain."By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Ammi Ki Baten 8:12

5M ago8:12

8:12

Hum aaj bhut udhas hain or abhi abhi ju afsana likha hai woh hum ne aap ko suna diya hai.By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Mehfil 7 - Presenting Kashmir, Anew 37:41

7M ago37:41

37:41

Amrita Ghosh talks to Kashmiri scholar and academic Hafsa Kanjwal her new book Colonizing Kashmir: State-building Under Indian Occupation (2023). The episode presents Kashmir and its long conflict in a new narrative. Kanjwal resets the usual ways of understanding Kashmir’s past and looks at the immediate postcolonial years of 1950s and 1960s in whi…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 12: Hoopoe Fiction 33:06

8M ago33:06

33:06

In our 12th episode of Radical Publishing Futures, Nadine El-Hadi, senior acquisitions editor at Hoopoe Fiction joins Meg Arenberg from her office near Tahrir Square in Cairo. The discussion focuses on the special position of Hoopoe and the American University in Cairo Press as a pioneering publisher of Arabic literature in English translation that…

1
Writing Somalia: Nuruddin Farah 54:06

9M ago54:06

54:06

Novelist, essayist and master trilogist Nuruddin Farah is one of the most important contemporary authors working today. In a writing career that spans more than five decades, Farah has published thirteen novels, dozens of essays and plays, all of which critically engage various dimensions of Somali history, culture and politics. Farah wrote his fir…

1
Léonora Miano: A Glossary for Black Identities 1:01:47

9M ago1:01:47

1:01:47

Cameroonian writer Léonora Miano joins guest host Greg Pierrot for the 10th episode of our Trailblazing African Feminists series. Miano was born in Doula, Cameroon and lived in France from 1991. She studied American literature at Nanterre university and this led her to African American and Caribbean writers that considerably influenced her work. Sh…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 11: Feminist Press 35:45

10M ago35:45

35:45

Radical Publishing Futures returns with a conversation between Meg Arenberg and director of Feminist Press Margot Atwell. Margot offers some perspective on the pioneering role of the Feminist press and its interdisciplinary journal WSQ, not only for radical independent publishing in the US but for women and gender studies as an academic field, as w…

1
Color of Publishing 3, perspectives from the United Kingdom 47:52

1y ago47:52

47:52

In the third episode of Color of Publishing, we focus on publishing perspectives from the United Kingdom with two prolific editors and writers, Margaret Busby and Ellah P. Wakatama. Host Bhakti Shringarpure engages the two experts in a wide-ranging conversation about the history of publishing in the UK, questions of diversity and representation, bo…

1
Color of Publishing 2, perspectives from the United States 1:03:37

1y ago1:03:37

1:03:37

In the second episode of Color of Publishing, we focus on publishing perspectives from and about the United States with Elizabeth Méndez Berry (One World Books) and Porscha Burke (Random House). Host Bhakti Shringarpure engages the two experts in a wide-ranging conversation about book acquisitions, editorial processes, taste and culture-making, equ…

1
Color of Publishing 1, debrief of the PEN America Report 47:15

1y ago47:15

47:15

On October 17th 2022, PEN America published a report titled “Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity and Book Publishing” with the goal to expose and explore the fact that the publishing industry has “entered a moment of moral urgency about the persistent lack of racial and ethnic diversity among employees and authors.” In our three-part series foc…

1
Mehfil 6 - Bhoot Prayt: Ghostly Encounters 51:15

1y ago51:15

51:15

A quirky episode on ghosts, hauntings and horror on this week’s Mehfil. Two women writers from India and Pakistan interrogate ghostly encounters and how to write about them. Host Amrita Ghosh welcomes Jessica Faleiro from Goa (India) and Sehyr Mirza from Lahore (Pakistan) to explore the writing of ghosts, hauntings and horror on a personal level as…

1
Mehfil 5 - Translating South Asia 1:04:50

1y ago1:04:50

1:04:50

This Mehfil explores the exciting world of South Asian translation especially the regional and vernacular literature that has lately been garnering international attention and winning prestigious awards. In Translating South Asia, host Amrita Ghosh talks to two renowned translators from the neighboring countries of India and Bangladesh. The convers…

1
Mehfil 4 - Dalit Gastronomy: Caste and Cuisine 51:43

1y ago51:43

51:43

An exploration of the ways in which caste structures are rigidly enforced when it comes to food, water, eating and drinking in India. Food is usually seen as celebratory, as a source of cultural pride and as a symbol of nostalgia but today's Mehfil cuts through these ideas to foreground the pain that food, eating rituals, and culinary and gastronom…

1
Mehfil 3 - CounterBlockbusters: On Subversive Cinema 1:04:24

1y ago1:04:24

1:04:24

Indian popular cinema known as Bollywood has always been a dominant symbol of the nation. It constructs and legitimizes ideas of traditions, cultures and ethos, and most importantly, solidifies who gets to be Indian and who does not. In this episode, Amrita Ghosh welcomes Hussain Haidry and Alka Kurian to her mehfil to talk about a different India,…

1
Mehfil 2 - Khayali Pulao: On Writing Food 1:04:48

1y ago1:04:48

1:04:48

Themes of food in literature inspire questions of resistance, cultural memory, gender and identity. This episode titled Khayali Pulao: On Food Writing touches upon food and food politics in Indian writing. Here, it is not merely a marker of identity, but can be a source of joy as well as pain and alienation. Writers Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and S…

1
Mehfil 1 - Wounded States: On Writing Conflict 1:07:28

1+ y ago1:07:28

1:07:28

India’s borders and borderlands have been marked by conflict since its independence from the British in 1947. Kashmir and the Northeast regions of India along with many forgotten enclave areas have been witness to relentless violence that have upended lives for several decades. How does literature from these war zones represent the conflict and peo…

1
Shifting Geographies of the Self: Margo Jefferson and Victoria Adukwei Bulley 34:49

1+ y ago34:49

34:49

Writer Margo Jefferson and poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley join BookRising host Bhakti Shringarpure to talk about their recent books which won the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023. The authors speak about crafting aesthetically innovative, genre-bending and political works. They also weigh in on particular challenges for Black women in the world of publishi…

1
How To Write About War 2: Battleground Bollywood 1:03:53

1+ y ago1:03:53

1:03:53

India is home to the world’s largest film industry that instrumentalizes soft power to generate all kinds of imperial fantasies and aspirations. It has historically been plagued by a pernicious nationalism wherein the othering, vilification and downright humiliation of religions, races, ethnicities and castes is normalized. A recent spate of blockb…

1
How To Write About War 1: Reporting on Ukraine 1:03:24

1+ y ago1:03:24

1:03:24

Are you shocked and distressed about the way in which war and displacement is being represented, reported and talked about right now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Writers, journalists, activists, scholars, Bhakti Shringarpure, Nadifa Mohamed, Suchitra Vijayan and Billy Kahora think through this difficult topic. Recorded on March 25, 2022, t…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 10: Comma Press 41:21

1+ y ago41:21

41:21

Episode 10 of the Radical Publishing Futures series features Meg Arenberg in conversation with Ra Page of Comma Press, based in Manchester, UK. They discuss Comma Press's exclusive focus on short story anthologies, what this kind of specialization allows the press to do, and the particular affordances of short fiction as a literary form, which Ra a…

1
Ghassan Kanafani: A Revolutionary as a Literary Critic 29:14

1+ y ago29:14

29:14

This BookRising episode celebrates the translation and publication of revolutionary Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani's works of literary criticism. Translated into English by Mahmoud Najib for the first time since publication in 1967, Kanafani's On Zionist Literature analyzes the corpus of literature written in support of the Zionist colonizatio…

1
A Phoenix and a Prophecy: YA Fiction from Palestine 27:14

1+ y ago27:14

27:14

Meg Arenberg speaks to writer Sonia Nimr and translator Marcia Lynx Qualey about the translation, editing and publication of Thunderbird, Nimr's speculative fiction trilogy. In this series, teen girl protagonist Noor finds herself hurtled into a fast-paced time-traveling adventure where magical worlds and mythology is combined with Palestinian hist…

1
Breaking Down the 2022 Booker Prize 1:10:56

1+ y ago1:10:56

1:10:56

Literature experts Bhakti Shringarpure and Ainehi Edoro discuss and dissect 2022's shortlisted Booker Prize novels in advance of the winner announcement for the world's most prestigious literary prize. The shortlist includes Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Ireland), Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (UK)…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 9: Restless Books 27:06

2y ago27:06

27:06

In this episode of the Radical Publishing Futures series, host Meg Arenberg speaks with Nathan Rostron of Restless Books. Still a relatively young press, Restless has moved in the opposite direction of many publishers: originating as an exclusively digital publisher that has recently moved to print publication of international literature, from nove…

1
Chinelo Okparanta: On Literature for Social Justice 56:20

2y ago56:20

56:20

Nigerian-American writer Chinelo Okparanta joins host Bhakti Shringarpure for an episode of BookRising as part of our Trailblazing African Feminists series. Okparanta was born in Nigeria and moved to the United States when she was 10 years old. She rose to prominence with her short story collection Happiness, Like Water (2013) which was a bitterswe…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 8: Bakwa Magazine 33:37

2y ago33:37

33:37

The 8th episode of the Radical Publishing Futures series features Dzekashu MacViban, writer, editor and founder of Bakwa Magazine. Guest host Bhakti Shringarpure speaks with him about how it all began and the ways in which they adapt to the changing publishing landscape. Bakwa magazine was founded in 2011 in Yaoundé, Cameroon with the goal of infus…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 7: Fernwood Publishing 42:42

2y ago42:42

42:42

The Radical Publishing Futures series continues with a conversation between Meg Arenberg and Fazeela Jiwa, Acquisitions and Development Editor for the Canadian press Fernwood Publishing, based in Halifax and Winnipeg. Fazeela describes a bit of the press’s history from its founding by Errol Sharpe in 1992 to what she calls its second iteration in t…

1
Véronique Tadjo: A Radical Literary Imagination 35:52

2y ago35:52

35:52

Writer, poet and painter, Véronique Tadjo joins host Bhakti Shringarpure for an episode of BookRising as part of the Trailblazing African Feminists series. Tadjo was born in Paris and grew up Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. She holds a PhD in African American Literature and Civilization and has juggled an academic career with writing as well as painting.…

1
Mai Ne Apni Maa ko Qatra Qatra Pighaltay Dekha 10:18

2y ago10:18

10:18

Aik tehreer- " Mai ne apni Maa ko Qatra Qatra pighaltay dekha" By Dr. Tahira KazmiBy Faryal Siddiqi

1
Mai Dobara Nikah Parhwah Raha Hun 8:51

2y ago8:51

8:51

Aik mazmoon Mustansar Husain Tarer ki kitab " Be izati khrab" se. Umeed hai pasand aye gaBy Faryal Siddiqi

1
Radical Publishing Futures 6: Andariya Magazine 34:03

2y ago34:03

34:03

For the 6th episode in our Radical Publishing Futures series, host Bhakti Shringarpure meets up with Andariya's co-founder Omnia Shawkat in Khartoum, Sudan. Andariya was founded in 2015 in both Sudan and South Sudan, and eventually branched out into Uganda. Andariya focuses on "contemporary life" in the two Sudans and in East Africa, more broadly. …

1
Bakra Eid Ki Dawat 8:28

2y ago8:28

8:28

Bakra eid k saath bakron ki amad amad hai. aik teekhi tehreer aap sab ki nazr. Tanqeed or tareef aap ka haq hai.By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Maktoob Episode 4 7:39

2y ago7:39

7:39

Makateeb Dr Mohammad Hamidullah ba naam Mohammad Tufail ki 4th episode : Maktoob Aleh -Mohammad Tufail Yeh qist Mohammad Tufail sahib ( Hamre Papajan ) k bare men hai. Umeed hai app ko pasand aye gee.By Faryal Siddiqi

1
Ubah Cristina Ali Farah: Somalia in Italy and a Reckoning with Colonial History 46:48

2y ago46:48

46:48

Somali-Italian writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah joins host Bhakti Shringarpure for an episode of BookRising as part of the Trailblazing African Feminists series. In this wide-ranging and intellectually rigorous conversation, Farah speaks about living in Somalia and Italy, and the ways in which Italy has only recently begun to reckon with their coloni…

1
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Rudo Mudiwa: On Radical Desire 37:06

2y ago37:06

37:06

In this episode Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Ghanaian feminist writer and blogger joins our guest host Rudo Mudiwa to talk about her groundbreaking anthology The Sex Lives of African Women. The conversation begins with Sekyiamah's award-winning blog Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women that underwent a change in form to become a print anthology.…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 5: Daraja Press 38:30

2y ago38:30

38:30

In our fifth episode of the Radical Publishing Futures series, Meg Arenberg interviews Kenyan publisher Firoze Manji, founder of Daraja Press. Reflecting on his 25 years in editing and publishing, including his work as founder and editor in chief of the prize-winning pan African social justice newsletter and website, Pambazuka News and its book pub…

1
Jennifer Makumbi: Reclaiming African Women's Histories 1:01:52

2+ y ago1:01:52

1:01:52

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi joins host Bhakti Shringarpure for an episode of BookRising that features trailblazing African feminist writers. Makumbi is a Ugandan writer and has published two critically acclaimed novels Kintu (2014) and A Girl is a Body of Water (2020). She is also the author of a collection of stories titled Manchester Happened (201…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 4: Seagull Books 48:52

2+ y ago48:52

48:52

Founded in 1982, Seagull Books is one of the most important names in radical, independent publishing today with an impressive list of over five hundred books of translated works as well as publications by world renowned writers and poets that include Nobel laureates and Booker prize winners. Seagull publishes several special series dedicated to a w…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 3: Interlink Books 31:31

2+ y ago31:31

31:31

In this episode of the Radical Publishing Futures series, host Meg Arenberg sits down with Michel Moushabeck of Interlink Publishing based in Northhampton, Massachusetts. Interlink Books is especially known for its award-winning cookbooks, but also publishes a wide range of titles in literary translation, history, politics, and travel, as well as m…

1
Radical Publishing Futures 2: Between the Lines 35:25

2+ y ago35:25

35:25

For the second episode in the Radical Publishing Futures series, host Meg Arenberg speaks with members of the Canada-based publishing collective Between the Lines (BTL). With the tagline "Books without Bosses," BTL has been publishing nonfiction focused on social justice and progressive politics since its founding in 1977. Long-time editorial commi…

1
World Radio Day 2022

2+ y ago

—

If you have missed our live show of World Radio Day, the show "World Radio Day 2022" is now available on Podcast! Know more about history and theme of the World Radio Day celebrated on 13 February with RJ Reshma. Also available on iTunes, Amazon Music. Listen to the best bollywood radio station.By radioBollyFM

1
Radical Publishing Futures 1: Mkuki na Nyota 1:01:50

2+ y ago1:01:50

1:01:50

In this episode, host Meg Arenberg chats with Walter Bgoya, towering Tanzanian intellectual, long time progressive publisher, and founder of the country's long-running independent press, Mkuki na Nyota (Spear and Star). Bgoya describes his early years as a publisher amid the radical ferment of Dar es Salaam in the 1970s and the porous boundaries be…

1
Maaza Mengiste: African Literary Tourism is Over 44:04

2+ y ago44:04

44:04

Writer and photographer Maaza Mengiste joined host Bhakti Shringarpure in the studio to discuss the expanding boundaries of African literature today. While the days of African literary tourism are behind us, there still remain significant challenges to overcome in Western publishing. Recent focus on literature from East Africa illustrates that the …

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