Who We Are
UntoldMag is an anchor for the curious and the critical. A platform where diverse voices converge to challenge the established and amplify the untold. We stand at the intersection of knowledge production and public debate, bridging the gaps between rigorous analysis and accessible discourse. Through plural narratives and bold questioning, we reimagine knowledge as a shared experience, one that is dynamic, decentralized, and deeply situated.
Our Mission
We are here to unsettle the status quo.
To question, provoke, and engage.
UntoldMag is committed to reshaping how we see the world and ourselves within it from our diverse positionalities. We deconstruct entrenched frameworks, interrogate dominant narratives, and center perspectives of individuals and communities, in order to reflect the world’s multiplicity and interconnectedness. From politics and society, art and culture, to technology and the environment, we create spaces for dialogue that is unflinchingly critical, unapologetically plural, and profoundly connected.
Our Vision
We envision a world where knowledge knows no center, where established power structures do not dictate the narratives that define us. At UntoldMag, we seek to challenge the systems of thought that have long shaped dominant perceptions. Our goal is to offer a platform for shared understanding, rooted in justice and liberation. Through curiosity, discovery, and rigorous debate, we aim to cultivate a collective consciousness that honors the multiplicity of life experiences and make available knowledge produced by scholars and experts alongside knowledge developed by those whose voices are often excluded and opinions dismissed for lack of credentials.
To those who seek to uncover the hidden.
To those who wish to dismantle and rebuild.
To those who believe that knowledge is both a tool and a shared right.
Join us in creating plural and inclusive narratives. Together, we can challenge the imposed, uplift the unheard, step beyond the available to imagine the possible.
UntoldMag is more than a media platform. It is a space where knowledge becomes connection, and connection becomes action.
Outside UntoldMag, Who Are We?
We are a group of friends and colleagues fed up with mainstream narratives, centralized systems and the concentration of power in the hands of the few. So we took the initiative to bring into existence the change we wished to see.
In November 2023 we launched UntoldMag as a collective initiative.
We are academics, researchers, activists, artists, journalists, designers, communicators and writers, driven by justice and insatiable curiosity.
If you’re as curious as we are, follow us on social media, sign up for our newsletter, or get in touch with us with your ideas, we’d love to connect!
UntoldMag is an editorial project of UntoldStories, which also runs its sister platforms SyriaUntold and Mena Art Gallery.
Our editorial team (in alphabetical order):
Diana Abbani: Music, culture and translation
Diana is a writer, translator and historian researching the music and entertainment scenes in West Asia. She is currently the science communication coordinator for the Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Diana holds a PhD in Arabic studies from the Sorbonne University in Paris, and has published on Beirut’s popular and material culture, the implications of social, political, and technological transformations, and the evolution of music industries and entertainment in Beirut. Some of her research-based articles and essays can be found in Bidayat, Jeem, al-Jumhuriya, The Markaz Review, Megaphone, and Raseef22.
Marta Bellingreri: Editorial support
Marta is a researcher and journalist, editor at UntoldMag and SyriaUntold. She has lived and worked in many WANA countries, reporting for Italian and international media. She is the author of two books and various podcasts, she’s also been involved in the production of several documentaries.
Rasha Chatta: Comics, culture, food stories
Currently based at the Freie Universität Berlin, Rasha is a comparative literature and cultural studies scholar, specialising in contemporary Arab migrant and diasporic narratives, war literature, visual archives, and Arab comics. She holds a PhD from SOAS, University of London and has held teaching positions at SOAS, Bard College Berlin, and NYU London. In 2009, she was Community Outreach Director at the Cairo-based Resettlement Legal Aid Project. Her scholarly work can be found here. Rasha’s wider interests include visual storytelling traditions and stories about geographically dispersed communities, Mediterranean music, collecting spices and cooking for friends.
Enrico De Angelis: Media and culture
Enrico holds a PhD in Media Studies. He mainly works on new media and public sphere in Syria and Egypt, but also on grassroots media, political communication, and journalism in the West Asia & North Africa region. He did a post-doc at Cedej, Cairo, between 2012 and 2014 analysing the networked public sphere in Egypt. He is one of the co-founders of the media platform UntoldStories and SyriaUntold and co-founder of the Italian version of Orient XXI. He currently works as a media researcher consultant for organizations such as International Media Support, Free Press Unlimited, UNESCO, Hivos, Deutsche Welle, and Canal France International. He has held teaching positions at the American University of Cairo, Roberto Ruffilli Faculty and the Political Science Faculty at University of Bologna. He published a monograph on media and conflict and several articles on media in the WANA region. He is particularly interested in critical approaches to internet studies and the networked public sphere in the Arab world. He has lived in Berlin since October 2016.
Walid El Houri: Politics, planet and Editor in Chief
Walid is a researcher, journalist and media specialist from Lebanon based in Mexico City. He is Co-founder & Editor in Chief of UntoldMag.org, Collaborative Director of UntoldStories.media, West Asia & North Africa Editor at Global Voices, and Senior Media & Communications Specialist at the Centre for Lebanese Studies.
Walid holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam and works at the intersection of academia, media, and advocacy, with a focus on dissent, social and political movements, and the geographies of war, crisis, and violence. He is interested in the interconnection of struggles across the planet, especially when it comes to community organizing, political movements, and environmental action. When not following the news, he is most likely cooking, preserving food, picking mushrooms and wild herbs, or exploring the underwater world.
Himmat Zoubi: Cities and history
Himmat is a Palestinian academic and researcher who holds a PhD in Sociology, along with two master’s degrees—one in Criminology and the other in Gender Studies. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the program “Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe” (EUME) at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Over the past years, Himmat has held research fellowships at several prestigious institutions in Berlin, including the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), the International Research Group on Middle East and North African Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, and collaborations between the EUME program and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. She is also an associate researcher at Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research in Haifa. As an urban sociologist, her research centers on cities and urbanization in colonial settings. Zoubi has authored numerous studies and articles on topics including cultural cities under settler colonialism, memory and oral history, indigeneity and everyday resistance, as well as women and feminism in Palestine.
