Events and Podcasts
Upcoming events
Feb
12
2026
Public Talk about On the Semicivilized
University of London
Public TalkLocation: University of LondonIn the series: "Histories of Capitalism and Race in the Middle East and Beyond," School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Past events
Oct
3
2025
Mikey Muhanna interviews Julia Elyachar
Afikra Podcast
InterviewLocation: OnlineLinkThe afikra Podcast features experts from academia, art, media, urban planning, and beyond, who are helping document and shape the histories and cultures of the Arab world through work.
Sep
19
2025
Fatima Seck interviews Julia Elyachar
Conversations in Atlantic Theory, Journal of French and Francophone philosophy
InterviewLocation: OnlineLinkConversations in Atlantic Theory explore the cultural, political, and philosophical traditions of the Atlantic world, ranging from European critical theory to the black Atlantic to sites of indigenous resistance and self-articulation, as well as the complex geography of thinking between traditions, inside traditions, and from positions of insurgency, critique, and counternarrative.
Sep
10
2025
Semicivilized Finance: Learning from the Ottoman Sarraf
Doll Lecture on Religion and Money, Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, Princeton University
LectureLocation: 219 Aaron Burr HallLinkUsing historical anthropology, Elyachar examines the sarraf ("money-changer" or "banker") as a node in dynamic financial relationships deemed "semicivilized".
Apr
24
2025
Book Talk: On the Semi-Civilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo
Department of Anthropology, Princeton University
Book talkLocation: 219 Aaron Burr HallLinkElyachar discusses her new book On the Semi-Civilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty.
Mar
18
2025
Financialized Counterinsurgency: Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Remaking of Cairo after 2013
Centre for Gulf Studies, University of Exeter
SeminarLocation: Online Centre for Gulf Studies | University of ExeterLinkElyachar draws on her new book On the Semi-Civilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty, to discuss the coloniality that shaped—and blocked—sovereign futures for those dubbed barbarian and semicivilized in the former Ottoman Empire.
