MESA and the ACSS have been organizing a series of special sessions during the MESA Annual meetings. In this session, we address the question of “How do we know what we know?” When it comes to knowledge production from the Arab region, to what extent are the complex currents and cross-currents of research, thought and critique accessible and legible to broad audiences, within and outside the region? After framing these questions, the session focuses on the findings of the Fourth Arab Social Science Monitor Report (ASSR4) of the ACSS, entitled “Humanities Knowledge Production in the Arab World”. The report seeks to critically approach humanities knowledge production with the aim of monitoring and analyzing the most important research trends, topics, and intellectual contributions in the 21st century, while also identifying obstacles that pose challenges to regional researchers. Through analytical readings of the research trends of a selected number of humanities disciplines, the report sheds light on the outstanding humanities knowledge production in the Arab world, especially in the past ten years, in the wake of the revolutionary movements that swept the region in 2011. The report starts from the premise that the 2011 Arab region revolutionary movements are central to understanding and analysing humanities knowledge production in and on the Arab world in the 21st century. The movements generated new questions and ideas and opened up previously unavailable spaces for expression, creativity, and the crystallization of marginalized intellectual and research movements. The report also opens up opportunities and possibilities for cross-regional and global collaborations that transcend institutions and hierarchies between North and South, East and West. The session will discuss how this type of analytical review enables the opening up of new agendas and dialogues.