From a community wedding in sanctions-era Baghdad to a London dance floor, Sajda Obaid’s music keeps finding new company, and new ways to belong.

Tishreen, the October 2019 uprising transformed central Baghdad into a space of protest, mourning and collective life. The murals, memorials and damaged buildings left behind form a living archive of Tishreen, preserving…

A musical inheritance can be familiar long before it becomes a language of one’s own. Raised in a musical household, violinist Layth Sidiq found in maqam an education that would reshape his…

A year before Iraq’s Personal Status Law was enacted, Naziha al-Dulaimi called for equality in marriage, divorce, property ownership, and children’s rights. We revisit her 1958 article, alongside Maria Talal, to explore…

What did going to the cinema mean in twentieth-century Iraq? It could mean chasing film flyers through the streets, saving for a 40-fils ticket, dressing in the latest fashion, memorising a song…

It is almost seven years since the Tishreen uprising.  Recent protests by graduates in Baghdad recall some of the grievances that drove it. These graduate protests are reminiscent of the beginnings of Tishreen itself.…