Historian and author Frauke Heard-Bey joins scholar Meitha Almazrooei to discuss the long arc of writing and archiving history. What started as a presentation at a European conference turned into Heard-Bey’s landmark publication From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates in 1982. By then, Heard-Bey had already started gathering the records that underpin much of the documentation of a region’s people and ongoing transformations.

As steadfast and concrete as her contributions to the historical record are, she continues to ask, “For whom do we write these histories?” A blend of principled conviction and tireless questioning sets the stage for an intriguing conversation about attending to the past in the present moment.

An Unwritten Country is part of Night School 2026 | Pardon Our Progress, a five-week programme of seminars and public events led by Todd Reisz and dedicated to encounters with urbanism and history in Dubai. Learn more about the programme here.

The event is free and open to all. Please confirm your attendance by registering here.

Frauke Heard-Bey studied history and political science in Heidelberg and Berlin. She received her Ph.D. from the Freie Universität of West Berlin in 1967, and followed her husband, David, to Abu Dhabi in the same year. In 1969, Frauke joined the Centre for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi, part of the Presidential Court, in the Qasr Al Hosn. The Centre specialized in collecting archival material about the Gulf. Frauke was with the Centre for 39 years, while it moved to a purpose-built place and became the National Archives in 2014. Frauke has published English and German books and articles about the Gulf region and beyond. Her book From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition has become a textbook for universities. Her latest book Abu Dhabi, The United Arab Emirates and the Gulf: Fifty Years of Transformation, published in 2016, contains a collection of 30 articles, conference contributions and autobiographical notes. It was published in 2017 by Gerlach Press.

Meitha Al Mazrooei is a Ph.D. candidate in History, Theory, and Criticism of Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her M.S. in Critical, Curatorial & Conceptual Practices in Architecture from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Her curatorial and editorial work encompasses public programming for Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, publications for The National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates, and the establishment of WTD Magazine. Her most recent editorial work includes co-editing two anthologies: On Foraging: Food Knowledge and Environmental Imaginaries in the UAE’s Landscape and In Plain Sight: Scenes from Aridly Abundant Landscapes.

Image credit: Frauke Heard-Bey in her office at the time in Hisn Fort, Abu Dhabi, undated.