Leiden Security and Global Affairs Podcast

Praneet Khandal discusses with Professor Tahir Abbas and Dr. Richard McNeil-Wilson their work on radicalisation and the European Union Horizon 2020-supported DRIVE Project.

Learn more at https://www.driveproject.eu/

Dr. Matthew Hoye and PhD Candidate Mohamed Muse talk about the work of the ERC-funded project JustRemit, an interdisciplinary study of global justice theories and remittances, combining perspectives from political theory, ethnography, and security studies. This episode discusses the impact that remitters have on their home countries, and the global economy as a whole, as well as how attempts to regulate the transmission of money have affected these international workers. The recent events in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are used as case studies for these discussions.

If you would like to learn more about the JustRemit project, please check out https://just-remit.com/

After a successful conference organised by The Hague Program For Cyber Norms, Jake sits down with Taylor Grossman and Heajune Lee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to discuss their papers, their work, and the emerging field of cyber norms.

The events of 9/11 transformed the status of Arabic language teaching in universities and schools worldwide. In many European and North American universities, Arabic went from being treated as a dead language equated with Latin or Ancient Greek to being taught as a living, breathing modern language for everyday life. Interest in learning Arabic remains on the rise but learning one of the world's most complex languages (for English speakers) is not for the faint-hearted. In this episode, Vanessa Newby and James Shires speak about the challenges of learning Arabic as a foreign language in the Middle East. Vanessa Newby introduces her latest book 'Follow the Arabic Road: Going Off Track in the Middle East' which describes her first tumultuous year of learning Arabic in Syria and travelling across the eastern half of the Middle East to Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran.

James and Vanessa, now both Assistant Professors at Leiden University, describe the pain and joy of learning Arabic in Oman, Egypt, and Syria. They discuss the challenges of: negotiating the nuances of the dialects that permeate the language; the tongue twisting pronunciation; and the complexity of the grammar. They find their journeys with Arabic often intersect leading them to similar conclusions about how to approach learning Arabic today. They reflect on the cultural norms that infuse the language and what it taught them about Arabs and the Middle East.

In the second part of the podcast (starting at 42:06), our host Jake Wright calls on the expertise of a professional Arabic teacher, Dr Hossam Ahmad from Leiden University to ask his views on learning Arabic as a foreign language and to relate his experiences as teacher. We learn - perhaps unsurprisingly - that Europeans often fare better owing to their familiarity with multiple languages, but every nationality has its own challenges to contend with. The question of which to learn first - a local dialect or formal Arabic called 'Fussha' - remains a pertinent question for students and instructors alike.

This pod is for anyone interested in the Arabic language or language learning in general, the modern Middle East, or anyone interested in travelling to the region. It provides a great introductory overview to the region and learning one of the world's richest, and most vibrant languages.

Vanessa Newby's book Follow the Arabic Road is available for purchase on Amazon through the following link: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B097LH6Y6B/ 

Jake is joined by Dr. Anna Matczak of The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Moniek Akerboom, PhD candidate at Leiden University.

For the first episode of the Leiden Security and Global Affairs Podcast, Jake sits down with Tim Wuisman of Leiden University to interview Matthijs Maas from the University of Copenhagen and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.