Archival Journeys: Reframing the Middle East Past and Future

Wednesday 17th September 2025

 

9:30 – 10:00 - Conference Registration, Tea & Coffee
Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

 

10:00 – 10:30 - Opening Remarks

• James Downs, University of Exeter
• Farangis Ghaderi, University of Exeter

 

10:30 – 12:00
Panel 1 — Revolutionary Archives: Anticolonialism, Resistance,
and the Left

Chair: Ross Porter (University of Exeter)

• Shahrzad Mojab, University of Toronto 
• Rebel Frames: Family, State, and the Left Legacy in Iran
• Riham Isaac, University of Exeter - The Palestinian Archive as Embodied Practice: From Assembly to Action
• Chowra Makaremi, CNRS, Paris - Counter-Archives of the Long Iranian Revolution

 

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break

 

13:00 – 15:00
Panel 2 — Sonic Archives and Material Culture

Chair: William Gallois (University of Exeter)

• Haneen Sidahmed, Sudan Tapes Archive Preserving Sudanese Sonic Cultures: The Case for Rogue Archivism & Community Memory Keepers
• Jon Bullock, University of Notre Dame, USA The Current State of Music Archives in Kurdish Studies
• Behrooz Chamanara, Kurdish Heritage Institute, Iraq - From Oral Performance to Digital Archives: Preserving Kurdish Sonic Heritage in a Decolonial Perspective
• Hazem Jamjoum, New York University - Audio Recordings as Sources for Early 20th Century Arab History

 

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee Break

 

15:30 – 17:00
Panel 3 — Feminist Methodologies in Archival Research

Chair: Sabiha Allouche (University of Exeter)

• Hoda Elsadda, Cairo University - Empathy and Imagination in Archival Research
• Farangis Ghaderi, University of Exeter - Gendering Kurdish History: Unearthing Lost Women’s Voices in the Archives
• Marya Hannun, University of Exeter - From Footnotes to Afterlives: Feminist Curiosity as Archival Method

 

Thursday 18th September 2025

 

9:30 – 11:00
Panel 4 — Tricontinental Archives: Internationalism, Solidarity and
Global Connections

Chair: James Downs (University of Exeter)

• Kanwal Hameed, University of Oxford - Towards an Archival Commons: Working with Cultural Production and Movement Material
• Marral Shamshiri, University of Exeter - Sawt al-Thawra: A Counter-Archive of the Dhufar Revolution
• Sorcha Thompson, University College London Archives of Tricontinental Solidarity in and beyond Cuba

 

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break

 

11:30 – 13:00
Panel 5 — Print Media Archives

Chair: Claire Beaugrand (University of Exeter)

• James Downs, University of Exeter - Voicing the Revolution: The Gulf Committee, the PFLOAG and the Role of Solidarity Networks in the Dissemination of Revolutionary Literature
• Chana Morgenstern, University of Cambridge - The Journal as Method in Middle East Context
• Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, University of St Andrews - Reflections on the Archives of the Iranian Left

 

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break - Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

 

14:00 – 16:00
Archive Tour James Downs, IAIS and Old Library

 

16:00 – 17:30
Keynote Lecture Rosie Bsheer, Harvard University - Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

 

19:00 Conference Dinner Hotel Du Vin

 

Friday 19th September 2025

 

9:30 –11:00
Panel 6 — Archives, Memory and Public History, Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

 

Chair: Maziyar Ghiabi (University of Exeter)

• Majid Aziz, Senior Advisor, Kurdistan Parliament Beyond the Official Narrative: Reconstructing the Modern History of Kurdistan through Private Family Archives
• Saad Eskandar, Former Cultural Heritage Advisor, Iraq Managing Sensitive Archives for Transitional Justice: Case Study of Post-2003 Iraq
• Mahdi Ganjavi, University of Toronto Counter-Archives and Memory Politics: Endangered Middle Eastern Collections at the University of Toronto

 

11:00 – 13:00 QUB/LT2 – LT2 Queens
Film Screening (50 mins + 45 mins Q&A;)

 

• Guerrilla Archive, Shahrzad Mojab, Chowra Makaremi, Setar Fathi Awihang
• Followed by Q&A; with filmmakers in conversation with Rana Jarbou

 

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break, Reed Hall, Upper Lounge

 

14:00 – 15:30 Roundtable — Archiving Against Erasure: Palestinian Archival Destruction in Historical Context

 

Chair: Marral Shamshiri (University of Exeter)

Participants
Rosie Bsheer, Ilan Pappé, Francesco Amoruso, Sorcha Thomson, and Rami Rmeileh

 

15:30 – 16:00 Closing Remarks