MENA-related Events Calendar

Organiser: School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Victor Kattan (University of Nottingham) and Danny Friedman KC will present the ‘Britain Owes Palestine’ petition, which calls on the UK government to recognise Britain’s imperial legacy in Palestine. They will discuss with Dr. Shaira Vadasaria and Dr. Nicola Perugini (University of Edinburgh SPS) how this legacy persists in Edinburgh through university investments and institutional memory.

This is the first event in a two part programme which will discuss Britain’s legacy of imperial and settler colonial dispossession of Palestinians, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the multiple forms of UK complicity with the ongoing genocide.

Each event requires separate registration. Details of the second event can be found here: The Gaza Tribunal.

Organiser: School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Professor Neve Gordon (QMUL), and Dr. Shahd Hammouri (Kent) will present their book, ‘The Gaza Tribunal’, and the public inquiry they oversaw in London in 2025 into Britain’s complicity in genocide. The event will be chaired by Dr. Nora Jaber (University of Edinburgh Law School).

This is the second event in a two part programme which will discuss Britain’s legacy of imperial and settler colonial dispossession of Palestinians, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the multiple forms of UK complicity with the ongoing genocide.

Each event requires separate registration. Details of the first event can be found here: Britain Owes Palestine and Balfour University.

The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) and the Dance, Music and Performing Arts of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Islamic Southeast Asia (MENACASEA) research network are pleased to present the fourth MENACASEA Symposium. 

This international gathering brings together scholars, artists and practitioners to explore dance, music, movement and performance traditions across the Middle East, North Africa, Central and South Asia and Muslim contexts in Southeast Asia. The 2026 symposium focuses on the relationship between music, dance, movement and spirituality in Muslim contexts, examining how embodied and musical practices shape religious experience, artistic expression, cultural identity and communal life.

We are delighted to welcome you to a documentary film screening of Guerrilla Archive, jointly hosted by the SOAS Middle East Institute (SMEI) and the Digital Archive of the Middle East (DAME) Project (University of Exeter). The film screening (50 minutes) will be followed by a Q&A session with one of the filmmakers, Shahrzad Mojab, and a drinks reception.

Guerrilla Archive (2025), a documentary film produced by CNRS and directed by Chowra Makaremi, with Setar Faithi and Shahrzad Mojab, explores a previously unseen visual archive – photographs, sounds, and videos documenting the daily lives of Kurdish Peshmergas after the 1979 Iranian revolution. This documentary film traces the threads of militant memory, between armed struggle and community organising, within Komala, a Kurdish communist party opposed the Islamic State. Guerrilla Archive offers an immersion into the counter-archives of violence, where documenting becomes a political act

The Alwaleed Centre is delighted to be collaborating with the School of Divinity to host Dr Layli Uddin (Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University) for a special public seminar entitled '“Fakk Kul Nizam" (‘Destroy all Orders’): Maulana Bashani and Abolitionist Theology in South Asia.

Free to attend and no registration necessary. Just come along on the day.

Date: Tuesday 3 November 20226

Time: 16:10

Venue: Martin Hall, New College, University of Edinburgh

Award winning journalist Mishal Husain will share her insights on history, heritage, family and geopolitics at the Sussex Asia Centre.

Mishal Husain will deliver the 2026 Sussex Asia Centre Annual Lecture on 'History, Heritage and Headlines: How Journeys into the Past Link to Today’s Geopolitical Shifts'.

Award-winning journalist, author and podcaster Mishal Husain will explore themes of history, heritage, headlines and geopolitical transformation when she delivers the 2026 Sussex Asia Centre lecture. 

Speaking at the Jubillee Lecture Theatre on the campus of the University of Sussex, Mishal will reflect on how, amidst a professional life immersed in international news, she recently discovered unexpected elements of her ancestry, from Central Asia to the British Empire in India and the United States. The picture that emerged brought together multiple migrations, influences and impulses connected to histories of trade routes and geopolitics and enabled her to think about her family story in a new way. In this lecture and discussion, Mishal will explore the people and places that shaped this understanding of family life spanning regions and continents, and connect her reflections to the power shifts of today.

London Palestine Film Festival (@lpffofficial) returns Nov 13th–27th. This year's programme features UK premieres, Oscar-nominated titles, archival footage and retrospective screenings, creating a vital space to showcase the richness and complexities of Palestinian life. Including Muayad Alayan’s newly released Conversation with the Sea, and don’t miss our screening in tribute to Mohammed Bakri +Q&A at Rio Cinema and Riverside Studios. Check out the full programme and book your tickets now to explore Palestinian culture and resistance through cinema. 

Organiser: SOAS Middle East Institute

Speakers: Madawi Al-Rasheed (Fellow of the British Academy); Maryam Aldossari (Associate Professor in Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London)

Chair: Adam Hanieh (Director, SOAS Middle East Institute)

The Quest for Democracy in Saudi Arabia brings together scholars and activists to examine the possibilities and challenges of democratic change in Saudi Arabia.

The book challenges the idea that demands for political participation, accountability and rights are somehow absent from Saudi society, and instead places these struggles within their longer political, social and historical context.

The launch will provide an opportunity to reflect on these questions at a particularly important moment: what democracy might mean in the Saudi context, the forces that continue to constrain political change, and the role of social movements, women, activists and wider civil society in imagining and pushing for different political futures.