From the Railway to the Highway: The History of (Un)Free Movement in the Arab Mediterranean

May 30, 2024.Reading time 29 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the final entry in our theme for the month, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean by Ingy Higazi In September 1923, Egyptian writer al-Sayyid ‘Abd al-Mu‘min Kamil al-Hakim set out on a journey from al-Qantara, east of the Suez Canal on Egypt’s northeastern border, to Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. His month-long journey […]

Reading ‘Akka’s Khans

May 23, 2024.Reading time 34 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fifth entry in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Francesco Anselmetti Entering ‘Akka in November 1693, ‘Abdel Ghani al-Nabulsi was overcome with disappointment. “We arrived at ‘Akka—a ruined town”, the Damascene intellectual writes, “its walls destroyed, the eye of its castle gouged out, the fruits of […]

The Jewish Quarter of Saïda: Intertwined Displacements and Memories of Absence in a Southern Lebanese City

May 20, 2024.Reading time 36 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth entry in our theme for the month of May: Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean by Molly Oringer “The rabbis prayed here, in Saïda’s synagogue,” recalled Basma, a Palestinian woman in her mid-thirties. It was early 2020, and we stood gathering in a courtyard typical of the medieval neighborhood, Ḥarat […]

The Center at the Edge: The Beach in Mid-Century Alexandria

May 16, 2024.Reading time 32 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the third entry in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Alexandra Camille Schultz Introduction: From Edge to Center[1] In the early twentieth century, more people began to spend organized leisure time at the beach, including in Egypt. Indeed, by the end of World War II, the Mediterranean […]

Urban Huts, Sickness, and Mobility: Finding Immigrants in Haifa and Jaffa in the 1930s and 1940s

May 13, 2024.Reading time 31 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the second post in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Lauren Banko Public health officers in Palestine could not find Adam Mohammad, a man diagnosed with leprosy. As it did with others in Palestine with the same diagnosis, the department of health wished to monitor Mohammad’s condition. […]

The Urban Tapestry of the Eastern Mediterranean—An Overview

May 8, 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in our theme for the month of May: Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Zeead Yaghi The social, urban, and political fabric of cities across the Eastern Mediterranean have long shared material, cultural, and architectural commonalities, influenced by factors such as travel, commercial capitalism, and shared governance. Whether the […]

Beyond the “Doom-Loop”—A Review of “Kids on The Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin”

May 7, 2024.Reading time 24 minutes.

Plaster, Joseph. Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Alex Melody Burnett At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, national media outlets developed a powerful new narrative about San Francisco. After years of tech-induced prosperity, San Francisco had supposedly entered a dangerous […]

Announcing The Eighth Annual UHA/The Metropole Graduate Student Blogging Contest

May 6, 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.

Connection The Metropole/Urban History Association Graduate Student Blogging Contest exists to encourage and train graduate students to blog about history—as a way to teach beyond the classroom, market their scholarship, and promote the enduring value of the humanities. This year’s theme is Connection. We are looking for blog posts that highlight connections that occur within, […]