News and stories with a focus on the publishing industry, education, and technology from across the Arab world. 

By Alex Shams 

Ajam Reads is a series presented by Ajam Media Collective that offers the reader essential reading and book summaries on topics of interest. This article, introducing nine important books for understanding gender politics in modern Iran, is the first in that series.

Tadween Publishing puts the spotlight on Shamaa: Arab Educational Information Network, as part of Tadween’s campaign to highlight individuals, groups, and organizations who play a role in the open access movement and knowledge production and preservation.

Sunaina Maira, Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture, and the Youth Movement. Washington, DC: Tadween Publishing, 2013. 

Based on ethnographic research in Palestine, primarily during the Arab uprisings, Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture, and the Youth Movementexplores the intersections between new youth cultures and protest politics among Palestinian youth in the West Bank and Israel. It focuses on Palestinian hip hop and the youth movement that emerged in 2011 as overlapping sites where new cultural and political imaginaries are being produced in the Oslo generation (jil Oslo).

EdX and the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development recently announced the creation of the Arabic-language online education portal Edraak. Anant Agarwal, edX’s president, answers a few of Tadween’s questions about the collaboration that will bring MOOCs (massive open online courses) to the Arab world. 

The Open Society Foundations works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. The Open Society Foundations’ Arab Regional Office (ARO) was established in 2006 to support local civil society in its efforts to protect human rights and build vibrant and tolerant societies. Based in Amman, Jordan, the office supports a diverse group of civil society organizations, research centers, universities, and media organizations across the Arab world in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, and Yemen.

The growing phenomenon of MOOCs (massive open online courses) is no longer contained to the English language. After announcing partnerships that will create MOOCs in Chinese and in French, EdX recently announced that it will be partnering with the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development to offer Arabic-language MOOCs.

Edited by Samia Errazzouki and Allison L. McManus 

In the past few decades, both media and academic scholarship have marginalized the Western Saharan conflict, rendering it largely insignificant within regional and global political imaginations.

With a series of articles that range in focus from universities in the Gulf to Hezbollah’s private schooling, the Financial Times released a special report on 20 October 2013 highlighting education in the Arab world. Unfortunately, the Financial Times is under a paywall, where users can only access up to eight articles a month unless they pay a subscription fee. As there are ten articles in the special report, above the restricted limit for free users, Tadween has created a roundup of the articles with links to the original pieces.

Tadween Publishing interviewed Sarah Kendzior, a researcher and op-ed columnist for Al Jazeera English, about the growth of the open access movement in academia and the rise of MOOCs (massive open online courses).