Bøger udgivet af The American University in Cairo Press

This collection of essays builds on presentations and debates that were part of Cairo Papers 19th Annual Symposium, "Sights of Knowledge: Debates about Visual Production in the Middle East," held in spring 2010. It also integrates commissioned contributions by other authors. Of special significance is a paper that deals with the 25 January Revolution and the visual productions and effects thereof. How was the revolution experienced through the visual production of everyday life on the square?

This collection of essays revisits agrarian transformation in Arab countries in the light of new realities and emerging challenges. Apart from the urgency of the deepening food crisis, such realities include environmental challenges, changes in consumption and life-style choices, and a new set of rules governing the conditions of access to resources. The issue investigates the commonality and diversity in the current processes of agrarian transformation, based on empirical case studies from different Arab countries.

How do women use courts within the context of paternity lawsuits? This study analyzes the challenges that the formal legal approach to empowering women faces once it is translated into every day socio-legal experiences and court repertoires. It also seeks to trace the pathologies inherent in personal status law reform and everyday legal practices in Egypt, attesting to the limitations of law as an agent of social change in the private domain of the family, and the difficulty of separating formal legal rules from informal social practices. Cairo Papers in Social Science 31:2.

A stunning collection of vintage studio photographs from Egypt, including princes, pashas, and members of the now vanished ruling class, presented in a sumptuous edition From the invention of the camera, photographers, like painters, have sought to portray other people, and early studio photographs, with their highly stylized props, poses, and costumes, offer a beguiling window onto the prevailing fashions, tastes, and attitudes of their time. The portraits in this book, Egyptian studio photos from the mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War, tell such a story, their popularity and art then driven by the burgeoning presence of photo studios across the country. In their rich variety, they offer vivid evidence of the democratization of the image as access to the technology spread from members of Egypt's royalty to an ever-wider circle of subjects. But, more than that, they freeze time, by capturing human subjects that are no longer there. These portraits, and the studios that created them, evoke haunting fragments of a vanished past and invite us to endless speculation and contemplation. In the age of the selfie, their power to speak to us from the mists of time cannot be overstated. Includes over 200 stunning images, from the work of 81 photographic studios.

This timely, elegant novel's hero is an Iraqi secret police inspector who routinely uses enhanced interrogation techniques, which even he considers torture. Convinced that he is protecting society from anarchy, he is at peace with the world until ordered to interrogate a childhood friend, a journalist with possible links to violent subversives. Then he falls in love with his friend's wife. The plot of this novel, which was written in Iraq in 1976 and published in Arabic in Germany in 1989, is further complicated by street protests in Baghdad following the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War of June 1967. Despite the grim subject matter of this novel, it is at heart a love story, lyrically narrated.

Considering the paradoxical position of al-raqs al-baladi or "belly dance" in Egyptian social life, as both a vibrant and a contested cultural form, this issue of Cairo Papers in Social Science considers the impact of wider socio-cultural and political forces on the marginalization of professional performers, on the one hand, and in defining the parameters for non-professional performances on the other hand. Through interviews with professional and non-professional female dancers in Egypt, it explores the relationship between al-raqs al-baladi and the dynamic cultural repertoire that produces notions of femininity and normative personhood in Egypt. As a dance that Egyptians learn in childhood, it exposes the cardinal relationship between culture and body movement. The study received the Magda al-Nowaihi Award for best graduate work on gender studies in 2010.Cairo Papers in Social Science 32/3

Was Nirvana's near-fatal accident at sea simply a case of bad timing, or was it attempted suicide? And what was so important about an unread email that made her jump recklessly into the Mediterranean? As Leila tries to make sense of her aunt's fate, Nirvana embarks on a journey through memories and secrets. Leila guiltily questions her own fears and failures, bearing the blame of a family that curses the day she was born. Lying in a coma, Nirvana's story of choices made and roads not taken paint a colorful picture of her struggle against expectations in 1980s Egypt. The two narratives are skillfully woven together to create an intricate story about breaking free from family tradition and the dreams that come back to haunt us. From the sunny beaches of Alexandria to the Bavarian Alps, author Mai Khaled explores the subtleties of family relationships and individual choices.

An illustrated cultural guide to the archaeological site of Amarna, the best-preserved pharaonic city in Egypt Around three thousand years ago, the pharaoh Akhenaten turned his back on Amun, and most of the great gods of Egypt. Abandoning Thebes, he quickly built a grand new city in Middle Egypt, Akhetaten-Horizon of the Aten-devoted exclusively to the sun god Aten. Huge open-air temples served the cult of Aten, while palaces were decorated with painted pavements and inlaid wall reliefs. Akhenaten created a new royal burial ground deep in a desert valley, and his officials built elaborate tombs decorated with scenes of the king and his city. As thousands of people moved to Akhetaten, it became the most important city in Egypt. But it was not to last. Akhenaten's death brought the abandonment of his city and an end to one of the most startling episodes in Egyptian history.Today, Akhetaten is known as Amarna, a sprawling archaeological site in the province of Minya, halfway between Cairo and Luxor. With its beautifully decorated tombs and vast mud-brick ruins, it is the best-preserved pharaonic city in Egypt. This informed and richly illustrated guidebook brings the ancient city of Akhetaten alive with a keen insider's eye, drawing on ongoing archaeological research and the knowledge and insight of Amarna's modern-day communities and caretakers to explain key monuments and events, while offering invaluable practical advice for visiting the site. With over 150 illustrations, maps, and plans, Amarna is both an ideal introduction for visitors to Amarna and a window onto the extraordinary reign of Akhenaten.

A Guide to the Ancient City of Akhetaten Arabic Edition. In Arabic

The definitive scholarly book on Arab documentary filmmaking in the Middle East North African (MENA) region. There is nothing like it for the period covered: neither celluloid nor digital periods, as well as the breadth of region-wide inclusivity.Editor, Viola Shafik ,is extremely respected in the field and a leading name in Arab film studies. Includes a wide range of prominent contributors. Shafik is the author of Arab Cinema: Culture and Identity66 b/w photographs

A richly illustrated guide to the Egyptian temple, its history, and the story of its goddess, Mut, as told by the preeminent archaeologists directing the excavationsMut was an important deity perhaps best known as the consort of Amun-Re and the mother of Khonsu, but her earlier and far more independent role was as the daughter of the sun god, much akin to Hathor. Like Nekhbet and Wadjet and the other lioness goddesses (referred to as Sekhmet) she was the "Eye of Re," who could be both benign and dangerous. In human form, Mut protected the king and his office; as Sekhmet she could destroy Egypt if not pacified. The Mut precinct was a major religious center from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Roman Period, but evidence suggests the existence of an even earlier temple. It expanded during the reign of the Kushite king, Taharqa and attained its present size during the fourth century BCE, sheltering three major temples, several small chapels, and eventually, a village within the protection of its massive enclosure walls. One of its most striking features is the hundreds of Sekhmet statues.In 1976, the Brooklyn Museum began the first systematic exploration of the precinct as a whole. Since 2001, Brooklyn has shared the site with an expedition from the Johns Hopkins University, both teams working cooperatively toward the same goal.This richly illustrated guide seeks to bring the goddess and her temple precinct the attention they deserve.

On his 'journey from the dreams of the jinn to the love of the truth' Jaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi is guided by his motto, 'let life be filled with holy madness to the last breath'. He goes from a life of comfort with a promising future guaranteed by his wealthy grandfather, Sayyed al-Rawi, to the life of a pauper.

On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby cafe, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian (and classically Mahfouzian) quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the 1952 Free Officers coup, the defeat of 1967 and the redemption of 1973, the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional 1980s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth to a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading world: the humble coffeehouse called Qushtumur.

An authoritative account by preeminent Egyptologist Miroslav Verner covering over 70 of Egypt's and Sudan's pyramids, their historical and political significance, updated in a magnificent new editionA pyramid, as the posthumous residence of a king and the place of his eternal cult, was just a single, if dominant, part of a larger complex of structures with specific religious, economic, and administrative functions. The first royal pyramid in Egypt was built at the beginning of the Third Dynasty (ca. 2592-2544 BC) by Horus Netjerykhet, later called Djoser, while the last pyramid was the work of Ahmose I, the first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1539-1292 BC).Nearly two decades have passed since distinguished Egyptologist Miroslav Verner's seminal The Pyramids was first published. In that time, fresh explorations and new sophisticated technologies have contributed to ever more detailed and compelling discussions around Egypt's enigmatic and most celebrated of ancient monuments. In this newly revised and updated edition, including color photographs for the first time, Verner brings his rich erudition and long years of site experience comes to bear on all the latest discoveries and archaeological and historical aspects of over 70 of Egypt's and Sudan's pyramids in the broader context of their more than one-thousand-year-long development. Lucidly written, with 300 illustrations, and filled with gripping insights, this comprehensive study illuminates an era that is both millennia away and vividly immediate.

An ethnographic study of how doctoral-level research in the social sciences and humanities is produced in EgyptMuch scholarship has been devoted to debates around how global inequalities of knowledge production arise from asymmetric power relations and disparities in access to material resources, as well as values and practices that prioritize certain academic disciplines and research outputs over others. The central role played by universities in producing both knowledge and researchers is similarly acknowledged, with the doctorate increasingly recognized as a crucial phase in establishing both.Bounded Knowledge: Doctoral Studies in Egypt explores these debates from a uniquely Egyptian perspective. It provides a fresh, historical analysis of how doctoral studies evolved in Egypt and an ethnographic inquiry into the actual conditions of knowledge production in the country's public universities, with focus on the humanities and social sciences. Although it is commonplace to speak of international collaborations in knowledge production, institutional settings and material conditions are so uneven as to make the fiction of equality impossible to sustain. The chapters in this book, by social scientists within and outside Egypt, look closely at how such academic hierarchies are reinforced in the context of the internationalization of research. They also look at the ways in which notions of socially responsible research, common the world over, are translated in the particularly Egyptian context: how research topics are discussed, how doctoral studies are organized, and ultimately, how society thinks about research.Contributors Mona Abaza, The American University in Cairo, Egypt Daniele Cantini, Martin-Luther-University of Halle/Wittenberg, Germany Nefissa Dessouqi, Cairo University, Egypt Hala Kamal, Cairo University, Egypt Jonathan Kriener, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Ola Kubbara, Cairo University, Egypt Ahmed Mansour, University of Alexandria, Egypt David Mills, University of Oxford, England