We’ve been called “‘This American Life’ of the Middle East” by The Guardian. We’ve also been featured on Radiolab (still wrapping our heads around that one). We’ve been awarded a Webby Honoree for Diversity & Inclusion. The Bello Collective named us among “100 Outstanding Podcasts” in 2019 and 2020. Oh, and Sarah Jessica Parker is a big fan

Latest Episodes

Aizen – Epilogue

Since our series about ‘Aizen’ ended, many of you have been in touch asking for...

The Black Panthers in Algeria

When Elaine Mokhtefi landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s, she was only...

A Past Life

When Heba was very young, there was a knock at the door at her home...

Somalia’s Banana Battles

You might remember Somali bananas from your childhood, lining the shelves at your local supermarket....

Whats in a Name?

‘Yasir?’ That’s too difficult. I’ll just call you Tony. This episode originally aired in October...

Bone of Contention

In 2014, the palaeontologist Nizar Ibrahim went public with an astonishing discovery he’d made while...

Aizen – Part 4: Do Good & Throw it in the Sea

After finally reaching Europe, Aizen was back in jail. He had calculated that the journey...

Aizen – Part 3: King of Serbia

Through smugglers, barbed wire fences and forests, Aizen arrives in Europe. But the sense of...

Aizen – Part 2: The Game

‘A game’ is what smugglers and migrants call attempting to cross illegally from one country...

Aizen – Part 1: I Hate Wednesdays

‘Aizen’ says he’s the most unlucky person in the world. This football-obsessed teenager from Afghanistan...

Episode Library

Presenting al empire: Jad Abumrad, Radio Host

While we’re working on the upcoming season of Kerning Cultures, we wanted to share with...

Lockdown Diaries

All of our lives have changed. In this unprecedented time, we wanted to make something...

Introducing: B’Hob | بِحُبْ

The Kerning Cultures Network has a new Arabic show we’re excited to share with you....

In Depth: Alex on the Da Miri Podcast

While we’re working on our summer season, we’re going to be dropping some bonus episodes...

We’re going seasonal

This year, we’ll be switching to a seasonal release schedule, rather than one episode every...

Update: Faraj

Today, an update on a story from the Kerning Cultures vault. The little-known, intertwining of...

Collateral Damage

In 1942, Lebanon’s National Museum opened in Beirut, celebrating the country’s golden age and inside,...

Update: To Oslo With Love

Today, an update on a story from the Kerning Cultures vault. Elie was a journalist...

Our Women on the Ground

Asmaa al-Ghoul was an ambitious young journalist when she started reporting on Gaza – her...

All of Them Means All of Them

On October 17, people in Lebanon hit the streets to call for a new government....

Presenting al empire: Bassem Youssef, Comedian

A special feature of Kerning Cultures Network’s newest podcast, al empire. Episode 4 features comedian...

A Tale of Two Inventors

His whole life, Walid Waked had been told that his great grandfather invented the Arabic...

Presenting al empire: Hamed Sinno, Mashrou’ Leila Singer/Songwriter

A special feature of Kerning Cultures Network’s newest podcast, al empire. The season kicks off...

In Case of Death

What happens when somebody dies in a country that’s not their home? This week on...

Trailer

Stories from the Middle East, North Africa, and the spaces in between. Support this podcast...

Mother Tongue

How do you preserve a language when your government is actively trying to erase it?...

Bonus: Our new show

Stay tuned for our new show, al empire, which features exceptional Arabs, and their journeys...

The Fishermen

Ramchandra Tendel arrived to Abu Dhabi from India in 1989, when he was 20. Since,...

The Baklava Challenge

We asked you, our listeners what you wanted to hear next, and you said, “Baklava!”....

Loving Lynn

Lynn left behind her hometown village in the Philippines for a housekeeping job in Lebanon...

We’ve got news!

Kerning Cultures is now the first venture-funded podcast company in the Middle East. Which means...

Misfits, Volume I

Two bite-sized stories from the Kerning Cultures vault. First, is there really Halal Cart drama...

KC Short: Break the Cycle

We asked women to tell us about their first periods and how it set a...

The Perfect Renaissance Man

In the 1930s, the architect Nasri Khattar tried to completely overhaul the Arabic script –...

Lebanon, USA

In 2016, Fadi Boukaram planned to visit 47 American towns named Lebanon by road. Then,...

Reviving Hamra Street

In the heart of Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut, Hamra Street once stood as one of...

Not Just My Hijab

Often the hijab is perceived as this static, monolithic thing. But of course, it’s not...

Faraj, Part II: The USA

In part one, we told the story of Faraj Al Baadani’s family, which unveiled a...

Faraj, Part I: Saigon to Sana’a

The little-known, intertwining of history between Yemen and Vietnam, told through the lens of a...

78 Degrees North

Short stories about passports, visas, and making “home”. And, the KC team challenge themselves to...

A Cinema, Demolished

When demolition began on the Plaza Cinema in 2015, something unusual happened; Dubai residents began...

Featuring Eib: إعتناق ديانة أخرى من أجل الحب

From Arabic podcast Eib, the story of a boy who falls in love with a...

Open Sesame

In 1979, Iftah Ya Simsim – the Arabic version of Sesame Street – aired for...

The Descent

“I still believe this is the scariest moment of my entire life. My face is...

The Things That Can’t Speak

Ronnie Chatah started giving his walking tours of Beirut in 2008, during a period of...

Update: Love in 56KB

It’s been two years since our story about Rami and Marinka, the Dutch-Lebanese couple who...

Her Side of the Story

Ghada and Ranyah don’t know each other, but their stories have a lot in common....

The Curse of the Pharaohs

This year, the Egyptian national football team ended a 28-year streak of bad luck when...

None of the Above

Every 10 years, the United States Census counts and categorises every person living in America....

To Oslo, With Love

Elie was a journalist looking for her next story when she met Ziad at a...

Resettled

From Iraq to Texas: a doctor’s chronicle of rebuilding life from the ground up as...

Resettled (English)

From Iraq to Texas: a doctor’s chronicle of rebuilding life from the ground up as...

Where the Heart Is

(Censored) A story of where we’re from – when it’s not straightforward. For his entire...

KC Listener Mashup: What’s in Your Name?

A mashup from our listening community exploring the literal meanings and experiences of your Arabic,...

The Mountain

“Without the female building block, there will be no security.” Ch 2 in our mini-series...

At the Feet of the Mother

“How would you like to remember your son?” Ch 1 in a mini-series on women...

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

Ask a Palestinian, ask an Israeli. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production. Support...

What’s in a Name?

‘Yasir?’That’s too difficult. I’ll just call you Tony. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network...

Startup Series: Tunis

6 years after a revolution, what is it like starting a business in the new...

These Two Lanes Could Take Us Anywhere

4,000 miles, a bike trip, an Armenian, a Turk, and a history that doesn’t match...

Not Just My Hijab (Ch 2)

4 women, and their hijabs. Chapter 2 of a 2-part series. Kerning Cultures is a...

Not Just My Hijab (Ch 1)

4 women. And their hijabs. Chapter 1 in a 2-part series, Not Just My Hijab....

KC Soundboard: We’re Listening to You

Behind the scenes of ourstartup Kerning Cultures. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production....

Serious Jolt

One man’s mission to revive Yemeni coffee for global markets. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning...

Where Do We Go From Here?

A look at (the first) Trump travel ban and its effects. Kerning Cultures is a...

Fight or Flight

When you’re forced to leave your home,what traditions do you take with you? A journey...

Birthplace of the UAE

The year is 1959, and 1 in every 2 babiesare dying in childbirth in the...

KC Short: Mid East for Trump

A US election special: meet the Americans of Middle Eastern descent supporting Trump. Produced by...

Reconciliation, a Tale of Two Seas

It’s 2011, and Bahrain is a divided society. Can they reconcile? Correction: The episode erroneously...

Border(less)

How do you lose a family member in Europe’s elusive borders? And as a refugee...

Love in 56KB

An epic modern love story. He was in Beirut during the Lebanon-Israel war; she was...

My Mother’s Country, Mother Of The World (Ch 2)

“No one believed I was moving back to Cairo; it’s a jungle there.”Chapter 2 finalises...

My Mother’s Country, Mother Of The World (Ch 1)

What do we owe the places that raised us? Egypt has the highest rate of...

Poetry, Deconstructed.

The creative process, deconstructed. This episode we take you behind the scenes to capture raw...

Finding Center

Finding center: physical, spiritual, mentally. Story I: [0:00-6:57] Finding Yourself in the Reflection of a...

Startup Series: UAE

Is Dubai the next Silicon Valley of the Middle East? Startup stories from the United...

Startup Series: Egypt

Egyptian startups: a different kind of revolution. This episode features Mahmoud Abdelfattah, founder of bkam.com,...

Startup Series: Lebanon

Our first episode of Kerning Cultures! Water and electricity cut daily, and yet $400M for...

Hebah on the Da Miri Podcast

Our winter season is coming very soon, but while you’re waiting just a little bit...

Behind the Scenes: Zar and Zabelle

While we’re gearing up for our next season, we wanted to share a behind the...

Update: Where the Heart Is

For his entire life, Maysam has lived in Dubai. His parents are from Syria, a...

Jerusalem Calling

The Palestine Broadcasting Service started airing in 1936, from a brand new transmitter tower in...

More Than A Buzz

In our day-to-day lives, it’s a drink. But for some people, it is not as...

Little Syria

The lower west side of Manhattan used to be home to the biggest population of...

Open Sesame Redux

In 1979, Iftah Ya Simsim – the Arabic version of Sesame Street – aired for...

Elephants in the Desert

Faysal Bibi and his team of palaeontologists have been captivated by this one particular moment...

The Missing Archives

In 1968, a trio of Palestinian filmmakers began making films about life under Israeli occupation....

Lebanon, USA 2.0

This week, a special collaboration with one of our all time favourite podcasts: Radiolab. We...

Misfits: Icebergs & Squash

This week on Kerning Cultures, two short stories. Producers Alex and Zeina uncover why Egyptians...

How to Help Beirut

We’re heartbroken by what happened in Beirut on Tuesday, August 4. Many of us at...

Rocket Man

In the 1960s, a college professor and his group of students were determined to build...

Zabelle

In 1917, a musical prodigy called Zabelle Panosian recorded a song that captured the heartbreak...

Trancing with the Zars

For centuries in Egypt, Zar was a music and dance ritual believed to heal women...

Ugly Truth

This is the ugly truth: racism and anti-Blackness in the Arab world is a common...

Outcast

Our producer Nadeen Shaker takes us on her own personal journey in trying to discover...

Unity High: Part 2

Last year, our producer Darah Ghanem stumbled upon an obscure blog on a nearly forgotten...

Unity High: Part 1

Last year, our producer Darah Ghanem stumbled upon an obscure blog on a nearly forgotten...

Summer Season Trailer

We’re back! We’ll be here with a new episode of Kerning Cultures every Friday this...

Escape to Cairo

In October 1960, the walls were closing in for Patrice Lumumba. Months earlier, he had...

Abandoned Ships: Part 2

After their employer abandoned the vessel they was working on, Vikash Mishra and his crew...

Jerusalem Calling

Because of what’s happening in Palestine this week, we’re holding off airing our usual programming....

Abandoned Ships: Part 1

When seafarer Mehmet Gulsen stepped on board the Kenan Mete, he thought he was signing...

Exodus

Loving Lebanon is one thing; living there is another. Generation after generation, surviving in the...

Found Sound

Two stories of music getting lost… and then found again. A record producer unearths a...

Collateral Damage

In 1942, Lebanon’s National Museum opened in Beirut, celebrating the country’s golden age, and inside,...

Viva Brother Nagi

Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who moved to California in the...

Flagged and Stamped

Over the last half century, as many nations around our region have gained independence or...

No Victor But God

The graceful courtyards of Mexico and Puerto Rico aren’t the first places you’d go looking...

In Case of Death

What happens when somebody dies in a country that’s not their home? In the UAE,...

Whose Genizah?

In 2015, our producer Nadeen Shaker visited the Cairo Genizah in one of Egypt’s oldest...

Evacuate Kuwait

On August 2nd 1990, the Iraqi military invaded Kuwait City overnight, and its residents woke...

The A-Word

Ahmed Twaij explores an often-overlooked issue in the Arab world; racism towards Black Arabs. In...

Word on the Street

As 2020 brought us countless examples of injustice and pain, it brought remembrances that we...

Operation Nemesis

After the Armenian Genocide, in which over 1.5 million Christians from the Ottoman Empire were...

The K-Pop Wave

Since 2012, Korean pop culture has captured the imagination of people across the Middle East:...

This season on Kerning Cultures…

We’re excited to announce that season 2 of Kerning Cultures starts next week. Each Thursday,...

The Secret Somali Tapes

It’s 1988, and Somalis are fleeing the city of Hargeisa. People are trying to get...

Sheikh Imam: Voice of Dissent

A blind oud player from humble beginnings, Sheikh Imam’s destiny changed drastically when he met...

The Intifada Tapes

Stuck in his Palestinian hometown of Jenin during lockdown, Mo’min Swaitat walked into an old...

Saving Mesopotamia’s Marshes

Azzam Alwash remembers the marshlands of southern Iraq as a magical place, where he would...

The Sleeping Children

In 2012, a Yazidi family fled to Sweden in the hope of a better...

The Rise and Fall of #MeToo in Egypt: Part 2

A warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and assault. As Egyptian women celebrated...

The Rise and Fall of #MeToo in Egypt: Part 1

A warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and assault. In the summer of...

The Burning Library

In 1962 the library at the University of Algiers was burned to the ground, turning...

A note to listeners

We’re holding off on releasing this week’s Kerning Cultures episode. Instead, we’re sharing resources on...

Hi Jolly

This week, we’re following the trail of an elusive camel herder called Hadj Ali (or,...

The Freemason

A family secret, hidden for decades by a grandfather in Iraq, gets uncovered by his...

Syria’s Stolen Memories

During the Syrian war, a group of archeologists risk their lives to record the damage...

Operation Boulder

Since 9/11, US governmental agencies have poured millions of dollars into spying on Arabs, Muslims...

A conversation with the team

Ahead of the latest season (which launches at the end of this month!), our team...

Aizen – Epilogue

Since our series about ‘Aizen’ ended, many of you have been in touch asking for...

The Black Panthers in Algeria

When Elaine Mokhtefi landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s, she was only...

A Past Life

When Heba was very young, there was a knock at the door at her home...

Somalia’s Banana Battles

You might remember Somali bananas from your childhood, lining the shelves at your local supermarket....

Whats in a Name?

‘Yasir?’ That’s too difficult. I’ll just call you Tony. This episode originally aired in October...

Bone of Contention

In 2014, the palaeontologist Nizar Ibrahim went public with an astonishing discovery he’d made while...

Aizen – Part 4: Do Good & Throw it in the Sea

After finally reaching Europe, Aizen was back in jail. He had calculated that the journey...

Aizen – Part 3: King of Serbia

Through smugglers, barbed wire fences and forests, Aizen arrives in Europe. But the sense of...

Aizen – Part 2: The Game

‘A game’ is what smugglers and migrants call attempting to cross illegally from one country...

Aizen – Part 1: I Hate Wednesdays

‘Aizen’ says he’s the most unlucky person in the world. This football-obsessed teenager from Afghanistan...

Tunisia’s Liquid Gold

When you think of good quality olive oil, which countries first come to mind? This...

Armenian Pilgrimages: A Journey to the Homeland

A father and daughter journey to their ancestral homeland, looking to track down the place...

Scoring the World Cup

This is the final week of the first World Cup hosted in the Middle East....

The Assassination of Alex Odeh

Alex Odeh was well known in the Arab community in Santa Ana, California. He...

Coming up on season 4 of Kerning Cultures…

Kerning Cultures season 4 launches next week, December 8th. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts so...

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