Bøker utgitt av American University in Cairo Press

"Palestinian Music in Exile is a historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate and undocumented locations. The stories taking center stage show creatively divergent and revolutionary performance springing from conditions of colonialism, repression, and underdevelopment. What role does music play in the social spaces of Palestinian exile? How are the routes and roadblocks to musical success impacted by regional and international power structures? And how are questions of style, genre, or national tradition navigated by Palestinian musicians? Based on seven years of research in Europe and the Middle East, this timely and inspiring collection of musical ethnographies is the first oral history of contemporary Palestinian musicianship to appear in book form, and the only study to encompass such a broad range of experiences of the ghurba, or place of exile."--

"By the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached a record high of 100 million, the highest figure since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban political takeover in Afghanistan exacerbated an already protracted global refugee situation, but climate-related events also played a part in forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of more habitable living areas. Making Routes: Mobility and the Politics of Migration in the Global South provides fresh understandings of mobility flows, transnational linkages, and the politics of migration across the Global South, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moving away from North-South, East-West binaries and challenging the conception that migratory movements are primarily unidirectional-from South to North-it explores how state policies, migrants' trajectories, nationalism and discrimination, and art and knowledge production unfold in places as widespread as Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Seventeen academics, activists, and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and international relations reveal the diverse narratives, migration patterns, forms of agency, and laws that make up the complex reality of South-South migration, offering vital new pathways for research in migration studies today."--

"Founded in 1859, as part of the Suez Canal project and named after Khedive Said, the city of Port Said has always stood at the juncture of global, national, and local networks of forces, the city itself a reflection of many layers of Egypt's modern history, from its colonial past through to the eras of national liberation and neoliberalism. Drawing on Bruno Latour's and Henri Lefebvre's conceptual works, this study examines how the 'social' (encompassing all aspects of human life-the political, the economic, and the social) of the city of Port Said was created, and how its spaces were mutually produced and transformed through the practices of both dwellers and the state. Looking also at the temporality of these processes, Mostafa Mohie examines three key moments: al-tahgir (the forced migration that followed the outbreak of the 1967 war and remained until 1974, when Port Saidians were permitted to return to their homes following the 1973 October War); the declaration of the free trade zone in the mid-1970s; and the Port Said Stadium massacre in 2012."--

"Oral history archives have always been at the forefront of liberatory social movements in general, and of feminist movement in particular. Until the end of the twentieth century in the Arab world, archives of women's oral narratives were almost non-existent with the exception of small documentation efforts tied to individual research. However, since 2011, there has been a marked increase in the documentation of projects. In this context, the Women and Memory Forum organized a conference in 2015 about the challenges of creating gender sensitive oral history archives in times of change. The papers in this collection shed light on documentation initiatives in Arab countries in transitional and conflict situations, in addition to international experiences. They engage with questions around archives and power, the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies to the making and preserving of archives, ethical concerns in the construction of archives, women's archives and the production of alternative knowledge, as well as conceptual and methodological issues in oral history. Contributors: Faiha Abdulhadi, Sondra Hale, Manal Hamzeh, Maissan Hassan, Nahawand El Kaderi Issa, Diana Magdy, Jean Said Makdisi, Noor Nieftagodien, Rafif Saidawy, Lucine Taminian, Stephen Urgola"--

"In 1957 the public sector in Egyptian cinema was established, followed shortly by the emergence of public-sector film production in 1960, only to end eleven years later, in 1971. Assailed with negativity since its demise, if not earlier, this state adventure in film production was dismissed as a complete failure, financially, administratively and, most importantly, artistically. Although some scholars have sporadically commented on the role played by this sector, it has not been the object of serious academic research aimed at providing a balanced, nuanced general assessment of its overall impact. This issue of Cairo Papers hopes to address this gap in the literature on Egyptian cinema. After discussion of the role played by the public sector in trying to alleviate the financial crisis that threatened the film industry, this study investigates whether there was a real change in the general perception of the cinema, and the government's attitude toward it, following the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war."--

"There is a great deal to be said about ideas and imaginations of the "future" when one does not have the luxury of maintaining a slot in the present. In the midst of acute conditions of precarity and structural violences and vulnerabilities of different forms (political, economic, social, infrastructural) and magnitudes, Egyptians find ways to adapt and adjust, even experiment, with different arrangements and forms of connectedness. By following, tracing, and accompanying friends and networks of friendship in and across Egypt's two biggest cities, Cairo and Alexandria, this ethnographic account aims to highlight some of the contemporary meanings, forms, and purposes of friendship among young Egyptians with the aim of renewing and reviving the question, "What can friendships do?" Against a backdrop of conditions of precarity and the ruins of finance capitalism, this study examines the manifestations of how the relationship of friendship manages to re-invent and re-define itself. Moreover, it asks whether new modes of relationality, companionship, and intimacy can be cultivated and practiced given the current neoliberal conditions of living. The questions that this study attempts to open up are focused on the re-workings, reconfigurations, and re-makings of practices of sociality and intimacy between friends."--

"This volume brings together leading experts from a range of disciplines to examine aspects of the daily lived experiences of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority from late Antiquity to the present. In doing so, it serves as a supplement and a corrective to institutional or theological narratives, which are generally rooted in studying the wielders of historical power and control. Studies in Coptic Culture and Community reveals the humanity of the Coptic tradition, giving granular depth to how Copts have lived their lives through and because of their faith for two thousand years. The first three sections consider in turn the breadth of the daily life approach, perspectives on poverty and power in a variety of different contexts, and matters of identity and persecution. The final section reflects on the global Coptic diaspora, bringing themes studied for the early Coptic Church into dialog with Coptic experiences today. These broad categories help to link fundamental questions of socio-religious history with unique aspects of Coptic culture and its vibrant communities of individuals."--

"This issue of Cairo Papers takes up the various dimensions of migration and refugees in the Euro-Mediterranean region over different periods in the last two centuries. It looks at both the migration of waves of Italians and Greeks to Egypt from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and at migration from the Arab southern and eastern rims of the Mediterranean to Europe starting in the twenty-first century. The disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and political science have been mobilized to undertake the research its chapters embody. They address the history of migration in the region, relations between Mediterranean countries of origin and their diasporas, the impact of interest groups on the formulation of migration policies in countries of destination, and the policies for integration of recent flows arriving in Europe. The chapters are based on papers delivered at Cairo Papers 25th annual symposium in collaboration with the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies"--

""The First Upper Egyptian nome, with its capital, Elephantine, was important in ancient times, as it stood on the southern border between Egypt and the Nubian provinces above the First Cataract. Since 2008, Alejandro Jimâenez-Serrano has led an archaeological mission at the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa, where Elephantine's high officials are buried. In Descendants of a Lesser God, he draws on textual records and archaeological data, together with new evidence from his work at the tombs, to cast fresh historiographical light on the dynastic dynamics of these ruling elites. Jimâenez-Serrano analyzes the origin of the local elites of Elephantine, and their role in trade and international relations with Nubia and neighboring regions, from the end of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom. He explores the development of these power groups, organized as they were in complex households, which in many ways emulated the functioning of the royal court. Delving deeply into the funerary world, he also highlights the relationship between social memory and political legitimacy through his examination of the mortuary cult of a late Old Kingdom governor of Elephantine, Heqaib, who was transformed into a local divinity and later claimed as the mythic ancestor of the ruling family of Elephantine. The history of ancient Egypt has traditionally been written from a court perspective. This new history of a strategically important region not only modifies existing perceptions of provincial life in the Middle Kingdom among the elites, but also introduces new evidence to support more complex and detailed reconstructions of the dynastic families in power.""--

"Until the year 2000, Cairo had been a model megacity, relatively crime free, safe, and public facing. It featured a thriving public culture and vibrant street life. In recent decades, however, the Egyptian state has accelerated a wholesale dismantlement of public education and public sector jobs and reversed the modest land reforms of the Nasser era. As a result, the vast majority of Cairo's people have been forcibly deprived of their social rights, social goods, and educational capital. Eschewing the traditional focus on top-down regime and state security, the contributors to this volume, who represent a wide array of academics, activists, artists, and journalists, explore how repressive policies affect the everyday lives of citizens. They show the ways in which urban security crises are politically fashioned and do not emanate from the urban social fabric on their own: city crime, violence, and fear are created by specific means of extraction, production, and control. Another kind of city can live again. But how? By tackling a range of issues, including public health, transportation, labor safety, and housing and property distribution, Cairo Securitized unsettles simplistic binaries of thug and police, public versus private, and slum versus enclave, and proposes compelling new ways in which securitizing processes can be reversed, reengineered, and replaced with a participatory and equitable urban order."--

""From Ibn Sina to Sindbad makes some of the greatest works of the Golden Age of Arab Civilization accessible to Arabic students at the mid- to high-advanced level of proficiency, while also providing a ready curriculum for teachers of Advanced Arabic. It introduces students to classical Arabic literature through twenty guided and scaffolded readings of works spanning prose genres from travel writing to philosophy, science, religion, humor, and imaginative fiction, including texts by al-Jahiz, al-Kindi, Ibn Khaldun, and Ibn Rushd. Original texts are supplemented with supporting explanatory material, to make them accessible to students, who then progress through an extensive series of exercises to test their comprehension, develop interpretive and critical reading skills, and apply the linguistic structures to their own speaking and writing. Each of the twenty lessons is designed to stand alone for classroom use or individual study, making it a most valuable resource for students and teachers alike.""--

A rich exploration of sibling bonds in literature and the artsThis issue of Alif explores representations of brotherhood/sisterhood in literature and the arts. What does it mean to be part of a brotherly/sisterly bond? And what do such bonds entail, positively or otherwise? These questions have been extensively posed and revisited in a variety of traditions old and new. Sibling relations, here defined, can also transcend kinship and blood relations to include shared causes and values, such as political solidarity and gender equality. Contributors:Shereen Abouelnaga, Cairo University, Egypt Abdelrahman Abuabed, independent scholar, Doha, Qatar Karam AbuSehly, Beni-Suef University, Egypt Saad Al-Bazei, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Mariam Elashmawy, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Safaa Fathy, poet, essayist, and filmmaker, France Anna Glowacka, independent scholar, Austria Hala K. Gomaa, independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt Noha Hanafy, The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt Magda Hasabelnaby, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt Amina Mansour, photographer, creative conceptualizer, and copywriter, Cairo, Egypt Dalia Said Mostafa, The University of Manchester, UK Manal Al-Natour, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA Andrea Maria Negri, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany Yomna Saber, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar Muhammed F. Salem, independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt Mary Youssef, Binghamton University, New York State, USA

""Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba documents a disappearing artistic and cultural tradition with over three hundred photographs showing individual pieces, rare images of women wearing their jewelry with traditional dress, and the various regions in Yemen where the author did her field research. Ransom's descriptions of the people she met and befriended, and her exploration of the significance of a woman's handmade jewelry with its attributes of power, protection, beauty, and personal identity, will appeal to ethnic jewelry fans, ethnographers, jewelry designers, and art historians. Amulet cases, hair ornaments, bridal headdresses, earrings, necklaces, ankle and wrist bracelets are all beautifully photographed in intricate detail, interspersed with the author's own photographs of the women who shared their stories and their hospitality with her. A chapter on the history of silversmithing in Yemen tells the surprising story of the famed Jewish Yemeni silversmiths, many of whom left Yemen in the late 1940s. This is the first in-depth study of Yemeni silver, uniquely illustrated with photographs of a world that is transforming before our eyes, and animated with the portraits of a precious legacy.""--

""In the Egypt of the 1970s, a young Azza Fahmy set out into the all-male world of Historic Cairo's jewelry district to apprentice as a silversmith. This was the start of a remarkable success story that would make her name an international luxury brand. With warmth and candor, she recalls a happy childhood in Upper Egypt, spent in the bygone world of postwar Egypt. This idyllic start to life ended abruptly with the death of her father, when Azza Fahmy was only thirteen, and the family was forced to move to Cairo, to begin a new life under much reduced circumstances. It was a chance find at a book fair that changed the course of events for her-sparking a passion for silversmithing, and inspiring her to seek out the master craftsmen of Khan al-Khalili, the great craft district of Historic Cairo, and the nearby Sagha, or goldsmiths' and silversmiths' district. Through her intimate knowledge of these jewelry workshops, Azza Fahmy takes us through the quarter's exquisite architecture and bustling alleyways, peopled with silversmiths, goldsmiths, brass workers, and artisans of every stripe, and lays out the indelible influence this now disappearing world has left on her acclaimed jewelry designs. While Azza Fahmy's story is one of great accomplishment, woven through it are her struggles as a single mother, a middle-class Egyptian, and a woman working in a man's profession. This memoir, a tribute to the people and places that shaped her creative imagination, is also an ode to the conviction that with hope and perseverance, anything is possible.""--

"The Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq, once the largest wetland system on the planet, have been inhabited for thousands of years by the Ma'dan, or Marsh Arabs, but they remain remote, isolated, and virtually unknown. In the early 1990s, the Saddam Hussein regime drained the Marshes and set out to destroy not only a critical ecosystem but a unique way of life as well. It stands as one of the greatest environmental and humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century. In the wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, local residents destroyed the earthen dams built to divert water from the wetlands and the Marshes were reflooded. Their future, however, is in peril. The Ghosts of Iraq's Marshes tells the history of the creation, destruction, and revitalization of the Marshes and their inhabitants against the backdrop of the dramatic events that have convulsed Iraq in the past fifty years. It follows the life of Jassim al-Asadi, an irrigation engineer who was jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein and who subsequently dedicated his life to the reflooding and restoration of the Marshes. He eventually contributed to the Marshes being declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Jassim is eminently relatable, and the stories of his life and other marsh dwellers are infused with pathos, tragedy, humor, and passion"--

The region of Nubia-now spanning the modern border between Egypt and Sudan-was long a subject of Egyptian imperial domination by its ancient pharaohs. However, in the eighth century BC matters were suddenly reversed, when the kings of Kush, the ancient name for Nubia, became the overlords of Egypt for nearly a century, before being forced to withdraw in the face of Assyrian invasions. Yet the Kushite kingdom would endure back in its heartlands for another millennium, the heritage of its Egyptian sojourn still visible in its fields of pyramid-tombs.This authoritative yet accessible book tells the story of these Nubian pharaohs of Egypt, from the origins of their kingdom of Kush, through their time as rulers of Egypt, to their heritage in the heart of Sudan-and their rediscovery in modern times.

A set of studies looking at the history, politics, and sociology of sports in the Arab worldThe sociology of sports in the Middle East has been neglected compared to other world regions. This volume aspires to encourage a greater focus on this topic. Here are assembled papers that discuss various aspects of this subject. As it happens all deal with football (soccer) largely in Egypt but including other Middle Eastern countries. Some are historically or politically oriented while others take a more sociological approach. Papers deal with the relation between organized sports and fans, with the special place of youngsters and women in sports, or with the role of sports in a more general understanding of culture and society as indicators of modernization and other facets of social change. Sportive competitions arouse keen passions around such issues as gender, class, and nationality, while they raise questions about leadership on and off the field, and about the economic impact of the games. The topic needs more research.Contributors:Deena Abdelmonem Zeinab Abul-MagdYasmine AhmedSandrine GamblinEllis GoldbergNicholas S. HopkinsClement M. HenryHans Christian Korsholm NielsenDina Makram-EbeidDavid Sims

An alternative reading of the relationship between the state and smallholder peasants in mid-nineteenth-century EgyptThis book examines the rural history of Egypt during the middle years of the nineteenth century, a period that is often glossed over, or altogether forgotten. Drawing on a wide array of archival sources, some only rarely utilized by other scholars, it argues that state policy targeting the peasant land tenure regime was informed by the dual economic principles of the Ottoman, or traditional, philosophy of statecraft, and that the workings of the relevant regulations did not produce extensive peasant land loss and impoverishment. Maha Ghalwash presents a rich, detailed analysis of such crucial issues as land legislation, tax impositions, the system of tax collection, modes of land acquisition, large-scale peasant abandonment of land, the emergence of surplus lands, the formation of large, privileged estates, distribution of village land, female land inheritance, and the nature of peasants' political activity. In investigating these issues, she highlights peasant voices, experiences, and agential power. Traditional interpretations of the rural history of nineteenth-century Egypt generally specify an avaricious state, so indifferent to peasant well-being that it consistently developed harsh policies that led to unremitting, extensive peasant impoverishment. Through an examination of the relationship between the absolutist state and the majority of its subject population, the peasant smallholders, during 1848-63, this study shows that these ideas do not hold for the mid-century period. State, Peasants, and Land in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt will be of interest to students of Middle East history, especially Egyptian rural history, as well as those of peasant studies, subaltern studies, gender studies, and Ottoman rural history.

"In the second half of the nineteenth century, states across the Muslim World developed new criminal codes and reshaped their legal landscapes, laying the foundations of the systems that continue to inform the application of justice today. Influenced by colonialism and the rise of the modern state's desire to control their populations, many have seen the introduction of these codes as a pivotal shift and divergence from the Shari a, the dominant paradigm in premodern Muslim jurisdictions. In A Continuity of Shari'a, Brian Wright challenges this view, comparing between the Egyptian, Ottoman, and Indian contexts. By examining the environment in which the new codes were created, highlighting the work of local scholars and legal actors, and examining the content of the codes themselves, Wright argues that the criminal systems of the late nineteenth century have more connections to their past than previously understood. Colonial influence was adapted to local circumstances and synthesized with premodern understandings in an eclectic legal environment to create solutions to local problems while maintaining a continuity with the Shari'a."--

"Upper-Intermediate Arabic through Discussion is a classroom-tested course that uses an inquiry-based approach to challenge intermediate learners of Arabic by engaging them in thought provoking discussions about topics of general interest. Each topic is stated in the form of a question, such as "What is the best way to learn a foreign langue?" or" Why are some sports more popular than others?," to prod students to immediately start searching for an answer. Drawing on her long experience as an Arabic instructor, Nevenka Korica Sullivan has organized the book into twenty chapters, each one devoted to a single theme. While exploring each topic, learners are guided to expand their vocabulary, acquire more complex structures, and discover systemic relationships between language form, function, and meaning. A rich assortment of exercises and activities ensures that learners make palpable progress toward advancing their language skills. The course is designed to create a lively learner-centered classroom where interaction between participants is both the goal and the means of language study; it can also be successfully used with a tutor or for independent study."--

A wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary collection of essays that decenter, critique, and problematize predominant notions of the meaning of mortality for human creativityThis issue of Alif explores the ways in which humans have come to confront their mortality across time and space. Contributions question the nature of loss, grief, and the possibility of an afterlife. Is death only an interlude? Perhaps simply the end? How have people used literature and the arts to conceptualize its relentless presence in our existence?The articles in this issue decenter, critique, and problematize predominant notions of the meaning of mortality for human creativity. They provide a wide scope of responses to mortality, anthropologically, philosophically, and psychologically. They shed light on different cultural receptions of loss, annihilation, and mortality, ranging from India to Yemen, Palestine to Iraq, the Island of Lampedusa to the war-ravished city of Beirut, among many other locales. Death is dealt with in an intimate fashion through the exploration and reinterpretation of modern and classical elegiac poetry, children's picturebooks, fictional accounts of war, grief, and displacement, and dramatic treatments of dying and the afterlife. Contributors: Hajjaj Abu Jabr, Egyptian Academy of Arts, Cairo, EgyptKaram AbuSehly, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef, EgyptHala Amin, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef, EgyptShaimaa El-Ateek, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaMohamed Birairi, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt, and American University in Cairo, Cairo, EgyptElliott Colla, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USASaeed Elmasry, Cairo University, Cairo, EgyptShaimaa Gohar, Ain Shams University, Cairo, EgyptWalid El Khachab, York University, Toronto, CanadaYasmine Motawy, American University in Cairo, Cairo, EgyptDani Nassif, University of Münster, Münster, GermanyAndrea Maria Negri, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, GermanyMarwa Ramadan, Zagazig University, Zagazig, EgyptCaroline Rooney, University of Kent, Kent, United KingdomTania Al Saadi, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SwedenMay Telmissany, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, CanadaShahla Ujayli, American University of Madaba, Madaba, Jordan

""Azraq refugee camp, built in 2014 and host to forty thousand refugees, is one of two official humanitarian refugee camps for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp investigates the relationship between time and power in Azraq, asking how a politics of time shapes, limits, or enables everyday life for the displaced and for aid workers. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, carried out during 2017-2018, the book challenges the perceptions of Azraq as the 'ideal' refugee camp. Melissa Gatter argues that the camp operates as a 'nine-to-five emergency' where mundane bureaucratic procedures serve to sustain a power system in which refugees are socialized to endure a cynical wait-both for everyday services and for their return-without expectations for a better outcome. Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp also explores how refugees navigate this system, both in the day-to-day and over years, by evaluating various layers of waiting as they affect refugee perceptions of time in the camp-not only in the present, but the past, near future, and far future. Far from an 'ideal' camp, Azraq and its politics of time constitute a cruel reality in which a power system meant to aid refugees is one that suppresses, foreclosing futures that it is supposed to preserve.""--

""While much is known about Egypt's towering pyramids, mighty obelisks, and extraordinary works of art, less is known about the role played by Egypt's geological history in the formation of pharaonic culture's artistic and architectural legacy. The fertile soils that lined the Nile Valley meant that the people of Egypt were able to live well off the land. Yet what allowed ancient Egypt to stand apart from other early civilizations was its access to the vast range of natural resources that lay beyond the Nile floodplain. In this engagingly written book, Colin Reader invites readers to explore the influence of geology and landscape on the development of the cultures of ancient Egypt. After describing today's Egyptian landscape and introducing key elements of the ancient Egyptian worldview, he provides a basic geological toolkit to address issues such as geological time and major earth-forming processes. The developments that gave the geology of Egypt its distinct character are explored, including the uplifting of mountains along the Red Sea coast, the evolution of the Nile river, and the formation of the vast desert areas beyond the Nile Valley. As the story unfolds, elements of Egypt's archaeology are introduced, together with discussions of mining and quarrying, construction in stone, and the ways in which the country's rich geological heritage allowed the culture of ancient Egypt to evolve. Ideal for non-specialists and specialists alike, and supported with over one hundred illustrations, A Gift of Geology takes the reader on a fascinating journey into Egypt's geological landscape and its relationship to the marvels of pharaonic culture.""--