What is The Culturelist?
The Culturelist is a space for stories, news, thoughts, and opinions about culture across the spectrum as curated by me (hello, more about who I am below).
What can you expect in your email? Art, literature, pop culture, storytelling, all the stuff that shapes and influences us, delivered to you in some kind of listicle-ish, conversational tone – because aren’t conversations the best thing ever?
So yes, The Culturist is a newsletter that’s not too serious but serious enough to be informative and entertaining, as we go down the many tangents of culture from the low, high to the very arching brow.
While there is a regional focus on the Middle East, The Culturelist also delves into the global zeitgeist, from the viral to the historically influential, because culture online, and online culture, don’t always adhere to the man-made conventions of geography.
Culture is universal and so incredibly personal.
So personal in fact that the name, The Culturelist, also refers to me, someone who can’t, won’t, ever stop talking and writing about culture, on any platform that will make space for me.
Who am I?
So, hello, hey, hi, I’m Maan Jalal an award-winning writer, podcaster, and journalist. I’ve spent the better half of the last two decades writing and reporting on culture on various platforms and publications.
My work has been featured in many national and international publications such as Khaleej Times, Stuff Worth Reading, Mille World, Arab News, Miss Muslim, and The National where I along with my co-hosts won the 2024 Signal Award for best co-host for the podcast Culture Bites.
My writing has also been published in Anthologies such as The Fish Anthology where he was selected as a winner of their Short Memoir Prize in 2020.
I also write novels, which takes up a lot of time. More info on that later – can’t waste all the good stuff in the About page.
In a way, all this stuff I just mentioned, doesn’t actually matter. It doesn’t tell you much about me, does it? I mean aside from the fact that I’m passionate about culture, story telling and writing and that I have for periods of time held down a job.
And while I could write another around 2,000 words about who I am - an incredibly self indulgent thing to do… that I may have already done and then deleted off here - I think it would be more interesting for you to find out who I am by what I write and how I write it.
Why did I start The Culturelist?
Recently I was introduced to the wonderful author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) as a culture writer.
‘Oh, you all still exist?’ He asked.
‘Apparently,’ I laughed – a little too hard.
Mr. Handler’s witty, fun observation was also sadly very much on the pulse of something.
I was made redundant from my job as a culture writer, along with a handful of other journalists and editors, from the newspaper I worked for two days prior.
It was a shock, obviously, not only from a personal perspective. It was another reminder that despite deluding ourselves into believing that we “get it” we actually still can’t keep up with a changing media landscape that refuses to settle into something cohesive or even tangible for any of us to actually “get it.”
I’ve always been interested in these ideas and narratives many of which I’ve explored on my instagram account. Another reason why I started The Culturelist is to explore those stories in the same tone and accessibility on my instagram but in a more in depth way.
What is the media now? How do we, how will we, consume it? Does it even matter in the way we it used to and do people, should people, care? And how does culture fit in all of it?
I don’t have answers for these questions, but I do know one thing.
Just because the media landscape doesn’t exist in the way it used to, culture itself still very much does exist. More importantly, culture doesn’t need “traditional” platforms to be observed, documented, archived, and enjoyed. It never did.
Why should you subscribe to The Culturelist?
Because you’re interesting and interested. That’s it.
What do I want from you?
As much as I would like to make this whole newsletter about me, it actually isn’t – it’s about you.
Culture in all its forms wouldn’t exist if not for individuals that engage with it, people who become communities, and that really is my hope.
What I want from all of you is for us to become a community that discusses all aspects of culture featured on The Culturelist.
