Böcker utgivna av American University in Cairo Press

"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."--

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.""--

"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"--

""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 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.

"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."--

"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."--

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.""--

""King Ramesses II ruled Egypt for an extraordinary sixty-six years (1279-1213 BC) during the Nineteenth Dynasty. A great warrior and lavish builder, he fathered dozens of children and is widely regarded as the most celebrated and powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom. This wonderfully clear, engaging book recounts the dramatic history of the famed red granite colossal statue of Ramesses II now residing in Egypt's Grand Egyptian Museum. One of the biggest statues ever made and part of the urban landscape of modern Cairo, the statue lent its name to Ramses Square and the city's mainline train station, and was so much a symbol of Cairo that it featured in countless Egyptian films. Susanna Thomas recounts the full history of the statue's creation and installation in the Great Temple of Ptah at Memphis during the reign of Ramesses II, its reuse by Ramesses IV, and the later history of the statue during the Greco-Roman and Islamic Periods. The book also provides an overview of how statues were made in ancient Egypt and includes a brief discussion of the statue cults of Ramesses II, kingship, temples, and the expansion of the New Kingdom capital city of Memphis and its temples. The final section covers the history of the statue since its rediscovery and subsequent rescue in the mid-nineteenth century until its installation in the entrance hall of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. Written by a New Kingdom specialist and curatorial expert and illustrated with over 150 images, Ramesses, Beloved by Ptah tells the fascinating story of this magnificent statue within the wider context of statue cults and the reign of Ramesses II, and its subsequent rescue and restoration in modern times.""--

"This book is the first of its kind to thoroughly and systematically compare ancient Egyptian and Arabic literary devices. Hany Rashwan compares the stylistic Arabic literary device of jinåas, or word play, a key literary device pervading medieval and modern Arabic poetry, literary prose, songs, and proverbs, with its counterpart in ancient Egyptian. Through the deployment of Arabic literary and critical methods he therefore makes possible the rediscovery of ancient literary register and tone in a way that has eluded Western scholarship. Since Arabic, along with other Semitic languages, such as Hebrew and Akkadian, belongs, like ancient Egyptian, to the Afro-Asiatic linguistic phylum, this vital study also proposes an Arabic-based textual analytic method as a viable comparative critical method for working across these kindred languages. Rediscovering Ancient Egyptian Literature through Arabic Poetics offers a groundbreaking postcolonial perspective on Egyptological method and theory by challenging the use of Eurocentric literary theories, terms, and concepts, and refreshing the study of ancient Egyptian and Arabic poetics. This innovative approach also speaks to, and challenges, a broader audience, including scholars of comparative poetics, comparative literature, world literature, Arabic poetics, and constructive rhetoric."--

"With the proliferation of satellite television news and social media channels, students of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) have access to an increasingly vast range of print and broadcast news from the Arab world. Media Arabic for Beginners is a unique textbook designed to lead elementary and low intermediate level students of MSA to a solid level of proficiency in the language of Arabic media. Through active engagement with authentic texts selected from a wide variety of news sources and websites, learners are familiarized with vocabulary, idioms, lexical items, and collocations, while grammatical concepts are introduced and explained in context. With sixteen texts accompanied by sixteen audio files and supportive PowerPoint presentations, this content-based approach allows students to develop and enhance their reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills. Vocabulary and grammatical points are presented as PowerPoint slides, making for discrete and manageable learning targets. Media Arabic for Beginners is structured around four themes, each devoted to a dominant news topic: Official Visits and Talks; Elections and Referendums; Attacks and Explosions; and Demonstrations and Protests. Each unit is in turn made up of four lessons, each lesson featuring a text from a particular perspective together with pre-reading activities, reading activities, post-reading activities, and a section with particular focus on grammar. The texts progress from very simple to more complex, as students steadily increase their reading fluency. Each unit ends with a thorough review section with various activities, such as comprehension questions, vocabulary translation, and role play."--

Volume one of Taha Hussein's classic work, unabridged, and supported with robust comprehension, interpretation, and analytical exercises, for advanced learners of ArabicTaha Hussein's autobiographical novel The Days helped usher in the era of modern Arabic writing and remains one of the most influential and best-known works of Arabic literature. With this guided study, the complete first volume of the novel is accessible to students of Arabic in a way never previously available. While Arabic literature provides a vast body of texts as a window into diverse cultures and eras, the lack of useful teaching material has often forced teachers to spend much of their time creating supplemental material, rather than focusing on the exploration of literary art and themes. This study will walk Arabic students through the unabridged novel in manageable lessons, supported with robust comprehension, interpretation, and analytical exercises, focusing on the historical context, elements of literature, and social themes. This book is organized to mirror the way an experienced teacher of Arabic literature would structure the lessons, and is thus perfectly suited as a textbook for an advanced Arabic or Arabic literature class, or as an independent study package for learners.

A richly illustrated account of the rulers of the first three dynasties of the ancient Egyptian civilization, written by renowned Egyptologist Aidan DodsonThe five centuries that followed the unification of Egypt around 3100 BC-the first three dynasties-were crucial in the evolution of the Egyptian state. During this time all the key elements of the civilization that would endure for three millennia were put in place, centered on the semidivine king himself. The First Pharaohs: Their Lives and Afterlives looks at what we know about the two-dozen kings (and one queen-regent) who ruled Egypt during this formative era, from the scanty evidence for the events of their reigns, through to their surviving monuments. It also considers how they were remembered under their successors, when some of the earliest kings' names were attributed to allegedly ancient ideas and events, and the ways in which some of their monuments became tourist attractions or were even wholly repurposed.Aidan Dodson recounts how two centuries of modern scholarship have allowed these rulers to emerge from an oblivion so total that some archaeologists had come to doubt their very existence outside the works of ancient chroniclers. Then, within a decade at the end of the nineteenth century, archaeological discoveries revealed a whole series of tombs and other monuments that not only confirmed these rulers' existence, but also showcased the skills of Egyptian craftsmen at the dawn of history.

"January 25, 2011, was a watershed moment for Egypt and a transformative experience for the young men and women who changed the course of their nation's history. Tahrir's Youth tells the story of the organized youth behind the mass uprising that brought about the spectacular collapse of the Mubarak regime. Who were these activists? What did they want? How did the movement they unleashed shape them as it unfolded, and why did it fall short of its goals? Drawing on first-hand testimonies, this study offers rich insight into the hopes, successes, failures, and disillusionments of the movement's leaders"--