Welcome to the media majlis museum Podcast powered by afikra, a series where we explore the intersection of language, culture, and identity, inspired by the exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at the media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar is the first media museum in the Arab world. It is dedicated to exploring journalism, communication and media. Through exhibitions, publications, programs and online resources we engage with themes that connect audiences to an ever-changing media landscape. The mm:museum's exhibition space uses digital technologies to challenge standard narratives and provide 360-degree views on global, regional and local stories, aspiring to represent the diversity of voices, perspectives, events and people that contributes to the evolving media world that surrounds and affects us all.
In season one, we dive into the Arabic language — a language spoken by over 400 million people but that’s constantly evolving under the pressures of globalization. Through engaging conversations with experts, artists, and cultural figures, we explore how Arabic unites and divides, empowers and limits, and how its complexity influences the cultural landscape of the Arab world and beyond.
Join us as we uncover the rich history, politics, and nuances of Arabic, revealing the stories behind its words, its impact on global cultures, and the challenges it faces today. Whether you're a native speaker or simply curious about the power of language, this podcast offers a unique perspective on the ongoing journey to preserve and celebrate one of the world's most influential languages.
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Welcome to the media majlis museum Podcast powered by afikra, a series where we explore the intersection of language, culture, and identity, inspired by the exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at the media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar is the first media museum in the Arab world. It is dedicated to exploring journalism, communication and media. Through exhibitions, publications, programs and online resources we engage with themes that connect audiences to an ever-changing media landscape. The mm:museum's exhibition space uses digital technologies to challenge standard narratives and provide 360-degree views on global, regional and local stories, aspiring to represent the diversity of voices, perspectives, events and people that contributes to the evolving media world that surrounds and affects us all.
In season one, we dive into the Arabic language — a language spoken by over 400 million people but that’s constantly evolving under the pressures of globalization. Through engaging conversations with experts, artists, and cultural figures, we explore how Arabic unites and divides, empowers and limits, and how its complexity influences the cultural landscape of the Arab world and beyond.
Join us as we uncover the rich history, politics, and nuances of Arabic, revealing the stories behind its words, its impact on global cultures, and the challenges it faces today. Whether you're a native speaker or simply curious about the power of language, this podcast offers a unique perspective on the ongoing journey to preserve and celebrate one of the world's most influential languages.
This conversation is an essential guide for anyone navigating the dualities of Arab identity, artistic integrity, and the unpredictable forces of the viral age. Multidisciplinary artist and professor Narcy (Yassin Alsalman) dives deep into the complex relationship between art, celebrity, power, and internet culture. Narcy discusses his conscious choice to reject the pursuit of virality, instead focusing on crafting art with deep meaning and intention, even as his work—from his viral Kanye West course at Concordia to his music videos—repeatedly breaks through the noise. Narcy unpacks his latest album, To Be An Arab, an intentional return to analog art in a digital world, and details the spiritual serendipity of creating the groundbreaking music video for R.E.D with Yasiin Bey and The Halluci Nation (formerly known as A Tribe Called Red).
We explore why certain cultural productions thrive exclusively online, the debate around meme humor versus emotional resonance, and how memes can serve as a form of social critique. Dr. Cristina Moreno Almeida, from Queen Mary University of London, joins us and discusses her research into internet culture and memes, particularly their role in North Africa. The author of "Memes, Monsters, and the Digital Grotesque," she delves into the unique aspects of Moroccan meme culture, the use of Darija in digital expression, and the political implications of online content in the Arab world, especially in the context of the "Arab Winter" narrative. Dr. Almeida also shares her contributions to the Memememememe exhibition at the media majlis museum.
We bring you the live recording of a panel we moderated at the media majlis museum in Doha this month. We delve into the history of memes in the Arab world with anthropologist Laure Assaf and Qatari comedian Hamad Al-Amari, where they explore their cultural significance, evolution, and impact on society. They address how memes merge cultural consumption and production, challenging orientalist tropes about Arab societies, and serving as a powerful tool for humor, satire, and political expression. Our panelists share insights into the mechanisms of virality, the role of different social media platforms, and the unique characteristics of Arab meme culture, from the Gamboo3a phenomenon to personal experiences of becoming a meme.
"Brain rot" as "trashy media for the algorithmic age", the political implications of memes, the differences in global meme cultures, and the impact of AI on the content we receive and share. Dr. Idil Galip is a lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam and a dedicated scholar of what she's called "meme studies". She shares her insights on the evolution of memes, "brain rot" media, and the impact of algorithms on digital culture. She discusses how memes have transformed from simple internet jokes into complex, monetized digital objects and content economies, dissects the most popular digital platforms we use, and tries to help us predict the future impact of the algorithmic and meme age we live in.
Is AI making journalism better or worse? We explore the evolving relationship between AI and journalism, AI's impact on newsrooms and education, and the critical need for AI literacy, especially in the Global South. Journalist, documentary filmmaker, and Assistant Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, Shakeeb Asrar, offers a hopeful, yet cautious, perspective, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations and human experience in an increasingly AI-driven world.
We continue our discussion around the media majlis museum's recent exhibition "Ai or NAY?" and explore the ethics of AI, featuring insights from exhibition contributors Katy Gillett and Hadeer Omar. We delve into the intricate relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, exploring the ethical considerations surrounding AI models that are increasingly influencing our lives and creativity. We tackle the nuances of AI as a tool, its societal impacts, and the balance between technological advancement and human agency.
We delve into the genesis and meaning behind the media majlis museum's groundbreaking exhibition, "Ai or Nay? Artificial vs. Intelligent," which challenges the dichotomous view of artificial intelligence. The curator of art, media, and technology at the museum, Jack Thomas Taylor, explores how AI, often presented as a utopian solution, is also a tool of surveillance and violence in the Arab world, a reality that the exhibition confronts head-on. He shares insights into how the museum approaches exhibition-making with a nuanced, non-Western perspective, and why the "dirty history" of museums is a conversation worth having in a regional context. We discuss the critical need for local voices in shaping AI and the dangers of a technology dominated by a singular perspective.
We organized a full-day symposium (October 26, 2024) with the mm:museum as part of their exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at Northwestern Qatar this year. Three panel discussions took place which we are bringing you in three episodes on their podcast. This is the last one in the three in which we explore the history and vernaculars of Arabic, the state of Arabic publishing, and the role of translation in it all. Host Layan Abdul Shakoor highlights the challenges of publishing practices and guests Dr Enam Al-Wer and Omar Thawabeh share (respectively) their insights on linguistic variations and evolutions, and on the intricacies of translating between Arabic dialects. The panel also addresses the need for re-standardization of Arabic, overcoming barriers in the publishing industry, and fostering a love for the Arabic language among younger generations.
We organized a full-day symposium (October 26, 2024) with the mm:museum as part of their exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at Northwestern Qatar this year. Three panel discussions took place which we are bringing you in three episodes on their podcast. This is the second of the three where our experts delve into the nuances of Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP) and its intersection with artificial intelligence (AI). Moderator Dr Wajdi Zaghwani who is an associate professor at Northwestern University Qatar, speaks with Salma Elkhaoudi – a PhD candidate at Stanford University focusing on the social impact of Arabic large language models – and Professor Nizar Habash – a leading expert in Arabic NLP at NYU Abu Dhabi. Topics covered include the challenges of developing Arabic AI models, the importance of preserving dialect diversity, and how AI influences cultural identity and language in digital spaces. The panel also touches on the ethical considerations of AI use, the role of academia and industry in advancing Arabic tech, and the importance of digital literacy in understanding AI's capabilities and limits.
We organized a full-day symposium (October 26, 2024) with the mm:museum as part of their exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at Northwestern Qatar this year. Three panel discussions took place which we are bringing you in three episodes on their podcast. Past guest Ibrahim Abusharif moderated the first panel with experts Amanda Abou Abdallah, Rana Kazkaz, and Hussein Fakhri who come from leading media organizations. They explored the evolving role of the Arabic language across diverse media platforms, covering a variety of critical topics including the evolution of Arabic content creation, the issues in needing to humanize Arab narratives, the impact of censorship, the future of Arabic language in media, and the importance of developing original and authentic Arab stories. They highlight the potential for growth and the need for a robust infrastructure to support original content creation from the Arab world.
Muntasir Al Hamad joins us on the media majlis museum podcast to talk about teaching Arabic as a second language. We talk about designing language, teaching curricula, and working with students of different native languages, while tackling the nuances of amiyya, fasiha and fusha. We get some of the local flavor that dialects offer us through language, and take a look at a 600-year-old manuscript from Ottoman Turkey that addresses learning Arabic as a non-native speaker.
Classical Arabic, MSA, and Fusha — all names that the Arabic language goes by. This conversation with Professor Ahmad Al-Jallad takes us through the origins and evolution of the Arabic language. Tracing back to the pre-Islamic and Nabatean Aramaic history through to the modern day, this episode is for grammar-nerds and Arabic speakers alike. We learn about where Arabic "came" from, what it means to define a language, and how it remained so stable despite instability in the region.
How does language affect the way we see the world? This is the question that the upcoming exhibition at the Media Majlis Museum "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" seeks to address. For the first episode of this podcast powered by afikra, we sat down with Amal Ali, curatorial exhibition manager at Northwestern University Qatar, to dig deeper into what this exhibition is all about. We talk about the relationship between language and identity, the unique nature of Arabic as a language with many dialects, and how its perception impacts its speakers. We also learn about how borrowed and loanwords in language point to cultural gaps and imbalanced exchanges through history — with the word for "orange" in Arabic being a prime example.
Welcome to the media majlis museum Podcast powered by afikra, a series where we explore the intersection of language, culture, and identity, inspired by the exhibition "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" at the media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The media majlis museum at Northwestern University in Qatar is the first media museum in the Arab world. It is dedicated to exploring journalism, communication and media. Through exhibitions, publications, programs and online resources we engage with themes that connect audiences to an ever-changing media landscape. The mm:museum's exhibition space uses digital technologies to challenge standard narratives and provide 360-degree views on global, regional and local stories, aspiring to represent the diversity of voices, perspectives, events and people that contributes to the evolving media world that surrounds and affects us all.
In season one, we dive into the Arabic language — a language spoken by over 400 million people but that’s constantly evolving under the pressures of globalization. Through engaging conversations with experts, artists, and cultural figures, we explore how Arabic unites and divides, empowers and limits, and how its complexity influences the cultural landscape of the Arab world and beyond.
Join us as we uncover the rich history, politics, and nuances of Arabic, revealing the stories behind its words, its impact on global cultures, and the challenges it faces today. Whether you're a native speaker or simply curious about the power of language, this podcast offers a unique perspective on the ongoing journey to preserve and celebrate one of the world's most influential languages.
