Search Term: view from Cairo

The View from Cairo: Dispatch 3

The mood of celebration in Egypt after the resignation of the president is uncontainable. Egyptians know there are unanswered questions and uncertain times ahead, and the country’s woes have not been wiped out overnight, but they have achieved something that a few weeks ago was unthinkable, and they are proud not just of that achievement but of the way they did it: The 25 January Revolution, as it is being called here (from the date of the first protests), has been an incredibly impressive peaceful mass movement (sometimes confronted with sickening violence) of young and old, men and

The View from Cairo: Dispatch 2

The protesters are standing firm, and are not impressed by the concessions the government is offering. Yesterday we watched the growing line—halfway back onto the Qasr al-Nil Bridge—of people queuing to get through the double security cordon (army first, protesters’ popular committee volunteers next) into Tahrir Square. The first thing that struck me was that people were prepared to stand in line to join the protest: standing in line is not a common phenomenon in Egypt—people normally form a scrum, and push—but here they were lining up (in the rain), flags and banners in hand, for their right to protest. The second thing was the diversity: a lot of young

The View from Cairo

We are all fine. Many dramatic events over the last few days. Particularly disturbing was the battle for the Interior Ministry just up the road from my house, which went on for eight hours on Saturday: we heard and watched the police firing tear gas and live fire (including automatic weapons) and the protesters ducking into back alleys to make and throw Molotov cocktails. Also very disturbing the violent clashes that are happening right now on Tahrir Square, while the army stand and watch.

Howard Carter and Tutankhamun: a different view

By Peter Der Manuelian

On 4 November 1922, Englishman Howard Carter acted on a “hunch” and discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, setting the world at large on fire, archaeologically speaking. “King Tut’s tomb” and the (much older) Pyramids of Giza;:have any other monuments come to symbolize ancient Egyptian civilization—and archaeology—better?

In your face in Cairo

By Brian K. Barber
I had learned from Kholoud that Aly would be in Cairo this week. So, as soon as I arrived on Monday night I called while walking through Tahrir Square. He picked up but the reception wasn’t good. He said he was also in the Square, that he was headed to drop off his bags, and would call later. I didn’t hear back from him.

The suspicious revolution: an interview with Talal Asad

By Nathan Schneider
Not long after his return from Cairo, where he was doing fieldwork, I spoke with Talal Asad at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where he is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. Distinguished indeed: with books like Genealogies of Religion and Formations of the Secular, as well as numerous articles, Asad’s work has been formative for current scholarly conversation about religion and secularity, stressing both

Safety first? Considering protest reasoning 10 years on from the Arab Spring

By Stephanie Dornschneider

Could we expect new mass protests to mark the ten-year anniversary of the Arab Spring? New research investigates the cognitive processes underlying the protests, especially how the desire for “safety and stability” impacts the decision to protest or abstain.

Women & Literature: Maya Angelou

By Tasha M. Hawthorne

Angelou’s creative talent and genius cut across many arenas. One of the most celebrated authors in the United States, Angelou wrote with an honesty and grace that captured the specificity of growing up a young black girl in the rural South.

The future of borders in the Middle East

By Ariel Ahram

The collapse of Arab regional order during the 2011 uprisings provided a chance to reconsider the Middle East’s famously misshapen states. Most rebels sought to control the central government, not to break away from it. Separatist, in contrast, unilaterally sought territorial autonomy or outright secession.

Towards a study of the role of law in the Arab Spring

By Nimer Sultany

The Arab Spring has been the subject of a growing body of scholarship. Much of this commentary has hitherto related to political and economic analysis of the events that took place in many Arab countries since December 2010. Nevertheless, the role of law remains understudied. There are several inter-related temporal, empirical, and theoretical difficulties that impede a proper analysis of the role of law in the Arab Spring.

Dogs in ancient Islamic culture

By Alan Mikhail

Dogs in Islam, as they are in Rabbinic Judaism, are conventionally thought of as ritually impure. This idea taps into a long tradition that considers even the mere sight of a dog during prayer to have the power to nullify a pious Muslim’s supplications. Similar to many other mistakenly viewed aspects of Islamic history, today both most Muslims and non-Muslims think that Islam and dogs don’t mix.

A thousand and one translations

By Lucie Taylor

What do Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, and Hanan Al-Shaykh have in common?

War stories of WWII

By Daniel Todman

Historian Daniel Todman coalesces various aspects of military history and the personal narratives from those who were in battle. Linking the strategic, political, and cultural sides of war, Todman aims to capture the true consequences of WWII. The excerpt below, from Britain’s War: Into Battle, 1937-1941, illustrates the fluidity of history by telling the stories of the author’s two grandfathers, both veterans with their own respective views on the war.

The feminist as the story teller

By Sachidananda Mohanty

Sarala Devi was a prolific Odia writer whose work encompasses many genres including prose, poetry, short stories, essays, literary criticism, novels, and plays. She was a versatile genius who occupies an important place in the domain of women’s history. She was a Gandhian feminist and a critical modernist who eschewed exclusive binaries between the home and the public place, the sacred and the secular.

Why a technologically enhanced future will not be as good as we think

By Nicholas Agar

Today there are high hopes for technological progress. Techno-optimists expect massive benefits for humankind from the invention of new technologies. Peter Diamandis is the founder of the X-prize foundation whose purpose is to arrange competitions for breakthrough inventions.

The evolution of Taiwan statehood

By Lung-chu Chen

Taiwan easily satisfies the traditional requirements for statehood: a permanent population, effective control over a territory, a government, and the capacity to interact with other states. Yet the realities of global power politics have kept Taiwan from being recognized as such.