Search results for ""american university in cairo press""
American University in Cairo Press Alif 40 Mapping New Directions in the Humanities
£70.83
American University in Cairo Press Blowing on Yogurt and Other Egyptian Arabic Expressions
A lively and informative collection of fifty common Egyptian colloquial expressions and proverbs, this book is must for learners of Arabic, language enthusiasts, and lovers of the country and its cultureThe idioms in this small, yet mighty, linguistic treasure trove have been put together to showcase the use of the Egyptian word illi, in itself a fascinating anomaly of the language as the only relative pronoun that exists in this dialect. Organized around their day-to-day linguistic function, each expression includes the original Arabic, a translation, an English equivalent or explanation, as well as whimsical illustrations.This book covers a wide array of meanings and contextspacked full of expressions that will console, threaten, encourage, and much moreand is sure to entertain and inform both lovers of language and Egypt enthusiasts.
£15.17
American University in Cairo Press A Nose and Three Eyes
Written by iconic Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, this classic of love, desire, and family breakdown smashed through taboos when first published in Arabic and continues to captivate audiences todayIt is 1950s Cairo and 16-year-old Amina is engaged to a much older man. Despite all the excitement of the wedding preparations, Amina is not looking forward to her nuptials. And it is not because of the age gap or because of the fact that she does not love, or even really know, her fiancé. No, it is because she is involved with another man. This other man is Dr Hashim Abdel-Latif, and while he is Amina’s first love, she is certainly not his. Also many years her senior, Hashim is well-known in polite circles for his adventures with women. A Nose and Three Eyes tells the story of Amina’s love affair with Hashim, and that of two other young women: Nagwa and Rihab. A Nose and Three Eyes is a story of female desire and sexua
£15.17
American University in Cairo Press Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance
A historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate locationsPalestinian Music in Exile is a historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate locations, including Gaza, Turkey, Kuwait, and Egypt. Grassroots musicians emerge here as powerful actors, their stories taking center stage, offering critiques of existing conditions, and new perspectives on displacement and the transmission of Palestinian narratives, and presenting alternative visions for the future.Louis Brehony argues that, under conditions of colonial relations and repeated displacement, the reclaiming of public space has gone hand in hand with aesthetic revolution, both broadening and traditionalizing the sounds of Palestine, and carrying messages of sumud (steadfastness) and resistance. Based on a decade’s research in Europe and the Middle East, this timely and inspiring collection of musical ethnographies provides a rich oral history of contemporary Palestinian musicianship and encompasses a broad range of experiences of the ghurba, or state of exile.
£49.99
American University in Cairo Press From Reading to Writing, Volume 1: An Intermediate to Advanced Course for Arabic Heritage Learners
A new comprehensive approach to teaching Arabic reading and writing skills to heritage students at the intermediate and advanced levelsFrom Reading to Writing, Volume 1 is a content- and task-based textbook for students of Arabic as a heritage language at the intermediate and advanced levels, aimed at developing learners’ basic language skills, especially reading and writing. Although heritage learners can often communicate in colloquial Arabic through exposure to the spoken language at home or in their country of residence, they equally as often face fundamental problems in reading and writing, as well as in speaking Modern Standard Arabic. Through authentic texts, carefully chosen to represent the lived realities of the language, supported by a range of tasks, this book seeks to develop heritage learners’ communication skills to meet the practical requirements of university study and the modern-day workplace. The topics covered also offer intellectually stimulating content to learners while connecting them in a meaningful way to Arab culture and society. The authors developed the course content with their students for over a decade and have designed the tasks in this book with the notion that language acquisition is not just a set of rules but an interactive process that depends on performing different tasks in multiple contexts. The tasks include prereading and intensive reading activities; comprehension questions; writing, listening, and grammar exercises; and vocabulary building, as well as higher-order questions designed to promote critical thinking skills. The majority of the writing and listening tasks focus on group work to encourage students to collaborate and engage in the learning process.From Reading to Writing, Volume 1 is also suitable for foreign-language learners of Arabic at the intermediate and advanced levels and native Arabic speakers enrolled at Arab universities.
£49.99
American University in Cairo Press It's Not Your Fault: Five New Plays on Sexual Harassment in Egypt
A collection of original short plays that focus on sexual harassment and assault in Egypt, by debut Egyptian playwrightsThese five original short plays, written by Egyptian students from the American University in Cairo in collaboration with Jillian Campana and Dina Amin, mark the first published plays in Egypt that deal directly with sexual harassment. Sexual crimes are not limited to the workplace or the street—they happen everywhere, from the bedroom to the café, in shops, on modes of transportation, and in businesses, homes, outdoor areas, and educational and religious institutions. They can be perpetrated by a stranger, acquaintance, friend, family member, or loved one and they can encompass many different types of sexual violence, including verbal, non-verbal, physical, or visual violence. This collection breaks social taboos by offering dramatic texts that reflect the reality of survivors of sexual harassment from multiple perspectives—families and couples, bystanders, victims and perpetrators, men and women. Many of the women portrayed in these plays are independent, educated, and well to do, but they are all subjected to varying degrees of sexual harassment and violence. Accompanied with narrative commentary that places the events in context, these plays and the issues they explore seek to challenge dominant perceptions about sexual harassment in the region and to shine light on the power imbalances and disparities that give rise to it. They will be of interest to artists, social science researchers, educators, and anyone interested in the issue of sexual harassment, and collaborative theater processes.Playwrights: Yehia Abdelghan, Marwan Abdelmoneim, Nour El Captan, Passant Faheem, Nour Ibrahim, Noran Morsi, and Omar OmarThe research on which this book is based was awarded the Times Higher Education 2023 MENA Award for Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Performances of these plays are royalty free.
£24.99
American University in Cairo Press The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt, 641–1517: The Popes of Egypt, Volume 2
An authoritative account of the Coptic Papacy in Egypt from the coming of Islam to the onset of the Ottoman era, by a leading religious studies scholar, new in paperbackIn Volume 1 of this series, Stephen Davis contended that the themes of “apostolicity, martyrdom, monastic patronage, and theological resistance” were determinative for the cultural construction of Egyptian church leadership in late antiquity. This second volume shows that the medieval Coptic popes (641–1517 CE) were regularly portrayed as standing in continuity with their saintly predecessors; however, at the same time, they were active in creating something new, the Coptic Orthodox Church, a community that struggled to preserve a distinctive life and witness within the new Islamic world order. Building on recent advances in the study of sources for Coptic church history, the present volume aims to show how portrayals of the medieval popes provide a window into the religious and social life of their community.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 42: Literature Confronting Mortality
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
£75.00
American University in Cairo Press Women in Ancient Egypt: Revisiting Power, Agency, and Autonomy
Cutting-edge research by twenty-four international scholars on female power, agency, health, and literacy in ancient EgyptThere has been considerable scholarship in the last fifty years on the role of ancient Egyptian women in society. With their ability to work outside the home, inherit and dispense of property, initiate divorce, testify in court, and serve in local government, Egyptian women exercised more legal rights and economic independence than their counterparts throughout antiquity. Yet, their agency and autonomy are often downplayed, undermined, or outright ignored. In Women in Ancient Egypt twenty-four international scholars offer a corrective to this view by presenting the latest cutting-edge research on women and gender in ancient Egypt.Covering the entirety of Egyptian history, from earliest times to Late Antiquity, this volume commences with a thorough study of the earliest written evidence of Egyptian women, both royal and non-royal, before moving on to chapters that deal with various aspects of Egyptian queens, followed by studies on the legal status and economic roles of non-royal women and, finally, on women’s health and body adornment. Within this sweeping chronological range, each study is intensely focused on the evidence recovered from a particular site or a specific time-period. Rather than following a strictly chronological arrangement, the thematic organization of chapters enables readers to discern diachronic patterns of continuity and change within each group of women.· Clémentine Audouit, Paul Valery University, Montpellier, France· Anne Austin, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, USA· Mariam F. Ayad, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt· Romane Betbeze, Université de Genève, Switzerland, and Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL, France· Anke Ilona Blöbaum, Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany· Eva-Maria Engel, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany· Renate Fellinger, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK· Kathrin Gabler, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland· Rahel Glanzmann, independent scholar, Basel, Switzerland. · Izold Guegan, Swansea University, UK, and Sorbonne University, Paris, France· Fayza Haikal, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt· Janet H. Johnson, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Il, USA· Katarzyna Kapiec, Institute of the Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland· Susan Anne Kelly, Macquarie University Sydney, Sydney, Australia· AnneMarie Luijendijk, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA· Suzanne Onstine, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA· José Ramón Pérez-Accino Picatoste, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain· Tara Sewell-Lasater, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA· Yasmin El Shazly, American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt· Reinert Skumsnes, Centre for Gender Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway· Isabel Stünkel, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA· Inmaculada Vivas Sainz, National Distance Education University), Madrid, Spain· Hana Vymazalová, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czeck Republic· Jacquelyn Williamson, George Mason University, Fairfax, Viriginia, USA· Annik Wüthrich, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Archaeological Institute, Vienna, Austria
£85.00
American University in Cairo Press When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East: Iraq and Syria, 1946–63
An essential study of parliamentary politics in postwar Iraq and Syria, before the consolidation of authoritarian rule under the Ba’th PartyWhen Parliaments Ruled the Middle East explores three main interrelated issues to clarify what happened between 1946 and 1963 in Iraq and Syria: how and why a parliamentary system prevailed in both countries in the aftermath of the Second World War; what social effects this system triggered, and, in turn, how these changes affected the system; and finally, why the elites in both countries were unable to overcome the unrest that brought an end to both a liberal era and to a certain kind of political game.Drawing on a vast array of sources and rich archival research in French, English, and Arabic, Matthieu Rey highlights the processes of the parliamentary system in the modern era, which are very common to post-independence countries and to any representative regime. He tackles the intersection of multifaceted political phenomena that were present in that moment in Iraq and Syria, including regular elections, the implementation of emergency law, the freedom of the press, the open expression of opinions, the formation of new political parties, frequent military coups, and the joint exercise of power by members of the old classes and reformist newcomers.Treating this period as neither an epilogue of the liberal order nor a prelude to authoritarianism, and stressing the contingent, improvisatory aspects of political history, Rey fundamentally questions the transitional nature of the period and in doing so proposes new ways and tools of examining it.
£60.00
American University in Cairo Press The Men Who Swallowed the Sun: A Novel
CO-WINNER OF THE 2022 SAIF GHOBASH BANIPAL PRIZEThis gritty tale of two men’s ill-conceived quest for a better life via the deserts of the Middle East and the cities of Europe is pure storytellingTwo Bedouin men from Egypt’s Western Desert seek to escape poverty through different routes. One—the intellectual, terminally self-doubting, and avowedly autobiographical Hamdi—gets no further than southern Libya’s fly-blown oasis of Sabha, while his cousin—the dashing, irrepressible Phantom Raider—makes it to the fleshpots of Milan.The backdrop of this darkly comic and unsentimental story of illegal immigration is a brutal Europe and Muammar Gaddafi’s rickety, rhetoric-propped Great State of the Masses, where “the Leader” fantasizes of welding Libyan and Egyptian Bedouin into a new self-serving political force, the Saad-Shin.Compelling and visceral, with a seductive, muscular irony, The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is an unforgettable novel of two men and their fellow migrants and the extreme marginalization that drives them.
£12.82
American University in Cairo Press I Do Not Sleep: A Novel
A story of betrayal, desire, and family drama, written by a giant of Egyptian popular fiction who shocked readers in the 1950s when this Lolita-esque novel first appeared and whose work has never before been available in EnglishSixteen-year-old Nadia had been raised by her father, after her parents divorced when she was only a baby. Indulged and petulant, she remained the only female in her father’s life. But when she returns from boarding school to find that he has remarried without her knowledge, she conspires to restore her rightful place, creating misery, confusion, and a flood of unexpected consequences in her wake.Written as a letter, a confession, by now twenty-one-year old Nadia, Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s classic novel of revenge and betrayal challenges patriarchal norms with its strong female characters and brazen sexuality, and continues to speak to the complex human condition. It dives into middle-class life, and lays bare the repressed desires, seething jealousies, and complicated dramas of family.Abdel Kouddous’s masterpiece I Do Not Sleep was adapted into a classic of Egyptian cinema in 1957, and its publication for the first time in English is an international publishing event.
£15.17
American University in Cairo Press Islamic Cairo in Maps: Finding the Monuments
A portable, easy-to-use map guide that locates over 700 hundred Islamic-era monuments in historic Cairo using the most sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologyThis portable, easy-to-use map guide helps you locate over seven hundred Islamic-era monuments in Cairo’s historic core, stretching from the city’s northern walls all the way southward to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun and the Citadel, and beyond to Coptic Cairo, which includes monuments that pre-date Islamic rule. Clearly divided into six digestible main sections, the first five contain clusters of monuments, while the sixth covers structures scattered all around the old Cairene urban fabric.The clear, uncluttered cartographic style makes finding where you want to go a pleasure, and the maps are accompanied by a comprehensive index of monuments that gives their dates where known, their location referenced to their corresponding map pages, and a timeline of key periods and dynasties.Attractively designed in full color and including over twenty photographs of key monuments, this guide is conveniently packed into a slim 104 pages—handy enough to take anywhere and great for planning and remembering excursions. It is not only an ideal companion for the city’s visitors and residents but an invaluable resource for historians, writers, and students.
£16.99
American University in Cairo Press The Luxor Obelisk and Its Voyage to Paris
The extraordinary story of how an obelisk from the banks of Luxor was transferred to the Place de la Concorde in Paris in the early 19th century Transporting the Luxor obelisk from Egypt to Paris was one of the great engineering triumphs of the early nineteenth century. No obelisk this size (two hundred and fifty tons) had left Egypt in nearly two thousand years, and the task of bringing it fell to a young engineer, Apollinaire Lebas, a man of extraordinary resolve and ability. His is a tale of adventure, excitement, and drama, but one hardly known to the English-speaking world. Lebas’ team was struck by the plague; they ran out of wood; they had to wait four months for the Nile to rise to free their beached ship. But in the end, The Luxor, with its precious cargo on board, sailed down the Nile. On October 25, 1836 before two hundred thousand cheering Parisians, Lebas raised his obelisk. He was rewarded handsomely by his king, a medal with his name on it was struck, and his body lies in the famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris along with French luminaries. Now this first-ever translation of Lebas’s account, including digitally enhanced copies of his beautiful drawings, makes his remarkable story available to a wide audience.
£35.00
American University in Cairo Press The Jinn Daughter
A stunning debut novel and an impressive feat of storytelling that pulls together mythology, magic, and ancient legend in the gripping story of a mother's struggle to save her only daughterNadine is a jinn tasked with one job: telling the stories of the dead. She rises every morning to gather pomegranate seedsthe souls of the deadthat have fallen during the night. With her daughter Layala at her side, she eats the seeds and tells their stories. Only then can the departed pass through the final gate of death.But when the seeds stop falling, Nadine knows something is terribly wrong. All her worst fears are confirmed when she is visited by Kamuna, Death herself and ruler of the underworld, who reveals her desire for someone to replace her: it is Layala she wants.Nadine will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe, but Kamuna has little patience and a ruthless drive to get what she has come for. Layala's fate, meanwhile, hangs in the balance.
£15.08
American University in Cairo Press A Gift of Geology: Ancient Egyptian Landscapes and Monuments
An introduction to the geology of Egypt and its influence on ancient Egyptian cultureWhile 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.
£24.99
American University in Cairo Press A Surgeon and a Maverick: The Life and Pioneering Work of Magdi Yacoub
“[A] remarkable journey.” —The TelegraphThe incredible life story of legendary cardiac surgeon and scientist Magdi Yacoub, an outsider who succeeded against the odds Veteran journalists Simon Pearson and Fiona Gorman follow the remarkable life of heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub from his formative years in Egypt, through spectacular success at Cairo University, to his long and distinguished career in Britain. Although at times he clashed with the medical establishment in London, Yacoub pioneered great advances in heart surgery. He was knighted in 1992, and in 2014, he was awarded the highest honor in the gift of the Queen, the Order of Merit.Written with unprecedented access and drawing on extensive interviews and research, the biography recounts how Yacoub transformed the treatment of children with congenital heart disease. He performed some of the first heart transplants in Britain and the first heart-lung transplants in Europe. At London’s Harefield Hospital, he created the greatest heart transplant center in the world. Among his patients are men and women who are still thriving more than thirty-five years after he gave them new hope. This story is also about science, the development of new medical techniques, and a deeper understanding of how the human body works. Today, at an age when most people have long since retired, Yacoub is still pushing the boundaries of scientific understanding and surgical know-how. He is also taking heart surgery to places that until now have had little access to cardiac treatment, developing centers of excellence across Africa, including in Egypt, where his hospital in Aswan has an international reputation, and a new center is rising in Cairo.Yacoub’s life is one of triumph and tragedy, success and failure, fierce criticism and high praise—it is also an enthralling journey through the worlds of scientific research and medical politics and ethics at the highest levels.
£24.99
American University in Cairo Press On the Nile in the Golden Age of Travel
A colorfully illustrated celebration of the classic era of cruising on the Nile, new in paperbackSince Antony and Cleopatra honeymooned on the Nile on a gilded barge, visitors to Egypt have taken to the river as the best way to experience the country’s wonders. Early travelers took a dahabiya, an elegant triangular-sailed houseboat, and leisurely meandered from riverside site to site, for three months or more. Then from the late nineteenth century, Thomas Cook of Leicester, England, revolutionized the journey with a fleet of specially built paddle steamers. For the next sixty years these ‘floating palaces,’ with their private cabins, and dining, smoking, and viewing salons, red-uniformed dragoman guides, and organized donkey excursions, carried the aristocratic, moneyed, and adventurous of international society of the time.Using period photography, and colorful vintage posters and advertising material, this book tells the story of the people, the places, and the boats, from pioneering Nile travelers like Amelia Edwards and Lucie Duff Gordon, through to famed later passengers, such as Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and, of course, Agatha Christie, whose staging of a death on the Nile only added to the allure.
£19.99
American University in Cairo Press Exhortation to the Monks by Hyperechios
£53.96
American University in Cairo Press A Continuity of Shari‘a: Political Authority and Homicide in the Nineteenth Century
A challenge to the “end of the shari‘a” thesis in Islamic legal historiographyIn 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 its populations, many have seen the introduction of these codes as a pivotal shift and divergence from the shariʼa, the dominant paradigm in premodern Muslim jurisdictions.In A Continuity of Shari‘a, Brian Wright challenges this view, comparing among 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 is 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.This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Islamic Studies, Islamic Law, and Islamic Legal History.
£49.99
American University in Cairo Press The Disappearance of Mr. Nobody: A Novel
WINNER OF THE NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL FOR LITERATUREA BEST NEW BOOK OF 2023 (THE NEW ARAB)A “spare, well-crafted and compelling” (Samah Selim) novel in which a man in Algiers disappears without trace and the detective in search of him finds more than he expectedIn Rouiba, a nondescript suburb of Algiers, an unnamed man with a troubled past escapes his everyday life to find himself caring for an old man with dementia. When the man dies, the carer disappears into thin air. A police detective is assigned to investigate the circumstances of the old man’s demise and to track down the caretaker, only to find that the unnamed man cannot be identified—that there is no trace of Mr. Nobody. The officer’s search leads him to those whose paths once crossed Mr. Nobody’s. In each of them he finds a reflection of the man he is looking for.A raw, lyrical portrait of life on the margins in contemporary Algiers, this haunting noir captures an underworld of police informers, shady imams, bootleg beer traders, and grave robbers, and reverberates with echoes of Algeria’s violent past.
£11.24
American University in Cairo Press The Egyptian Economy in the Twenty-first Century: The Hard Road to Inclusive Prosperity
A multi-faceted account of Egyptian economic development by nineteen internationally recognized authorities and the critical challenges the economy is likely to face in the next twenty yearsThe Egyptian Economy in the Twenty-first Century addresses the question of why Egypt, despite possessing a plethora of assets—such as a fertile agriculture, a strategic geographic location, oil and gas deposits, innumerable tourist sites, a labor force prized by regional countries, and a diaspora that remits large amounts of funds—has seldom performed to its economic potential during the last sixty years. Indeed, economic weakness created political weakness, and often exposed the country to foreign diktats. What should the country do to change this state of affairs?Nineteen internationally recognized authorities on the Egyptian economy discuss the critical challenges that the Egyptian economy is likely to face in the next two to three decades, challenges which must be overcome in order to improve the life of Egypt’s citizens and to protect the country from external pressures. Their analyses cover population and employment; development strategies; principal macroeconomic issues; development of a digital economy; fiscal and monetary matters; the external sector; poverty and income distribution; the enterprise structure; higher education; water availability; urbanization; institutional performance; and many others.Contributors:- Gouda Abdel Khalek, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt- Khaled M. Abu-Zeid, Regional Water Resources, CEDARE (Center for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe), Cairo, Egypt.- Fatma El Ashmawy, World Bank.- Ragui Assaad, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA- Izak Atiyas, Economic Research Forum, Cairo, Egypt.- Marwa Biltagy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.- Lahcen Bounader, International Monetary Fund.- Ishac Diwan, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.- Ahmed Ghoneim, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.- Khalid Ikram, Washington DC, USA.- Karima Korayem, al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.- Heba el-Laithy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.- Noha el-Mikawy, Ford Foundation, Middle East and North Africa, Cairo, Egypt. - Mohamed Mohieddin, Menoufia University, Menoufia, Egypt.- Heba Nassar, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.- Osman Mohamed Osman, Cairo, Egypt.- Noha Razek, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.- David Sims, Cairo, Egypt.- John Waterbury, Princeton, New Jersey.
£79.99
American University in Cairo Press Dust: Egypt's Forgotten Architecture, Revised and Expanded Edition
A stunning photographic compilation of Egypt’s abandoned palaces and grand buildingsBetween 1860 and 1940, Cairo and other large cities in Egypt witnessed a major construction boom that gave birth to extraordinary palaces and lavish buildings. These incorporated a mix of architectural styles, such as Beaux-Arts and Art Deco, with local design influences and materials. Today, many lie empty and neglected, rapidly succumbing to time, a real-estate frenzy, and an ongoing population crisis. In 2006 Russian-born photographer Xenia Nikolskaya began the process of documenting these structures. She gained exceptional access to them, taking photographs at some thirty locations, including Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Minya, Esna, and Port Said. These photographs were documented in the first edition of Dust: Egypt’s Forgotten Architecture, which soon after its release in 2012 became a rare collector’s item.This revised and expanded edition includes photographs from the first edition together with extra unseen images and new photographs taken by Nikolskaya between 2013 and 2021. It also includes previously unpublished essays by Heba Farid, co-owner of the Cairo-based photo gallery Tintera, and architect and urban planner Omar Nagati, co-founder of CLUSTER, an urban design and research platform also in Cairo.Dust: Egypt's Forgotten Architecture leads us seductively into some of the most breathtaking architectural spaces of Egypt's recent past, filled with a sense of both the immense weight and the impermanence of history.
£39.99
American University in Cairo Press Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 41: Literature, History, and Historiography
A wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between history and literatureThis issue of Alif explores the relationship between literature and history. What do history and literature have to say to each other? What can literature say that history cannot, and vice versa? Do they work with or against each other? How does the literary dimension of history affect its status, and how does the historicity of literature, in turn, shape its being? What would it mean to speak of a “literariness of history” today? The terms “literature” and “history” in our title are intended to be construed in the broadest possible sense and to cover the widest possible range of genres and modalities of literary and historical writing. The recent proliferation of epithets and sub-disciplines in the study of both literature and history has fundamentally changed both fields while raising further questions about the possibility of scholarly debates that traverse them.Contributors- Balthazar I. Beckett, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Mohamed Birairi, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt, and the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Ziad Dallal, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA- Karim Elsaiad, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt- Itzea Goikolea-Amiano, SOAS, University of London, London, UK- Rebecca Ruth Gould, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK- Magdi Guirguis, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt- Isabelle Hesse, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia- Abdullah Ibrahim, literary critic- Madonna Kalousian, independent scholar- Céza Kassem, independent scholar- Ahmed F. Khaleel, University of York, York, UK- Tarif Khalidi, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon- Peter Kornicki, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK- Wen-chi Li, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland- Azza Madian, Cairo Conservatoire and American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of London, London, UK- Daniel Rivet, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France- Anne C. Vila, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
£75.00
American University in Cairo Press Childhood in Ancient Egypt
A groundbreaking account of how the ancient Egyptians perceived children and childhood, from the Predynastic period to the end of the New KingdomThere could be no society, no family, and no social recognition without children. The way in which children were perceived, integrated, and raised within the family and the community established the very foundations of Egyptian society. Childhood in Ancient Egypt is the most comprehensive attempt yet published to reconstruct the everyday life of children from the Predynastic period to the end of the New Kingdom. Drawing on a vast wealth of textual, iconographic, and archaeological sources stretching over a period of 3,500 years, Amandine Marshall pieces together the portrait of a society in which children were ever-present in a multiplicity of situations.The ancient sources are primarily the expressions of male adults, who were little inclined to take an interest in the condition of the child, and the feelings of young Egyptians and all that touches on their emotional state can never be deduced from the sources. Nevertheless, by cross-referencing and comparing thousands of documents, Marshall has been able to explore how ancient Egyptians perceived children and childhood, and whether children had a particular status in the eyes of the law, society, and the Egyptian state. She examines the maintenance of the child and the care expended on its being, and discusses the kinds of clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles children wore, the activities that punctuated their daily lives, the kinds of games and toys they enjoyed, and what means were employed to protect them from illness, evil spirits, or ghosts.Illustrated with 160 drawings and photographs, this book sheds unprecedented light upon the experience of childhood in ancient Egypt and represents a major contribution to the growing field of ancient-world childhood studies.
£59.99
American University in Cairo Press Media Arabic for Beginners: A Coursebook for Understanding Arabic News
An introductory media Arabic book for the elementary and low intermediate levelsWith 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.
£24.99
American University in Cairo Press The Critical Case of a Man Called K: A Novel
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTIONA sensitive and at times darkly humorous story of a young man’s experience of illness, his contemplation of death, and his determination to maintain his independence through it allAfter reading Kafka, K decides to write his own diary, but he is constantly frustrated by his lack of experiences: he is worn down by the drudgery of his corporate job for a faceless corporation and by his incessant family obligations. When he receives the news that he has leukemia, he finds himself torn between a sense of devastation and a revelation that he has finally found a way out of his writing predicament. Through Mohammed’s measured but forceful writing, this compelling debut has a universality that reaches across time, place, and culture.
£12.02
American University in Cairo Press The Afterlives of Egyptian History: Reuse and Reformulation of Objects, Places, and Texts
An examination of the myriad lifetimes lived by ancient Egyptian artifacts Egypt has a particular longue durée, a continuity of preservation in deep time, not seen in other parts of the world. Over the centuries, ancient buildings have been adopted for purposes that differed from the original. Temple sites have been transformed into places of worship for new deities or turned into houses and tombs. Tombs, in turn, have been adapted to function as human dwellings already in the Late Antique Period.The Afterlives of Egyptian History expands on the traditional academic approach of studying the original function and sociopolitical circumstances of ancient Egyptian objects, texts, and sites to examine their secondary lives by exploring their reuse, modification, and reinterpretation.Written in honor of the Egyptologist, Edward Bleiberg, this volume brings together a group of luminous scholars from a wide range of fields, including Egyptian archaeology, philology, conservation, and art, to explore the historical circumstances, as well as political and economic situations, of people who have come into contact with ancient Egypt, both in antiquity and in more recent times.Contributor Affiliations:Yekaterina Barbash, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY USALisa Bruno, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY USASimon Connor, F.R.S.–FNRS, Brussels, Belgium and University of Liege, Liege, BelgiumKathlyn (Kara) Cooney, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USARichard Fazzini, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY USAPeter Lacovara, Ancient Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage Fund, Albany, NY USARonald J. Leprohon, University of Toronto, CanadaMary McKercher, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY USAEdmund Meltzer, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, California USAJoachim Friedrich Quack, Heidelberg University, Tiffin, Ohio USAPaul Edmund Stanwick, independent scholar, New York, NY USAEmily Teeter, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL USAKathy Zurek-Doule, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY USA
£49.99
American University in Cairo Press The Life of Bishoi: The Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic Lives
Four translations of major accounts of the life of the fourth-century Egyptian desert father St. Bishoi, in one volume Saint Bishoi of Scetis (d. ca. 417) enjoys tremendous popularity throughout the Christian east, particularly among the Copts. He lived during a remarkable era in which a litany of larger-than-life monastics lived and interacted with one another. Even then, Bishoi stood out as the founder of one of the four great monasteries of Scetis (Wadi al-Natrun): those of Macarius, John the Little, Bishoi, and the Baramus. Yet in spite of Bishoi’s prominence, the various recensions of his hagio-biography have received sporadic, scattered attention.The Life of Bishoi joins other Lives of eminent monastics of early-Egyptian monasticism: the Lives of Antony, Daniel, John the Little, Macarius, Paphnutius, Shenoute, and Syncletica. These Lives are vital for what they tell us about monastic politeia (way of life), spirituality, and theology, both of the early monastics and of those who later wrote, translated, and revised the Lives. They appeared first in Greek and Coptic, and later generations translated and revised them into Syriac, Arabic and Ge‘ez (Ethiopic).This definitive volume contains the first English translation of the Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic Lives of Bishoi, each translation accompanied by an introduction that focuses on certain aspects of the source text. It also has the first transcription and English translation of an important Greek text. The General Introduction provides rich context about the texts and textual traditions in the various languages, and thoroughly revises our knowledge about the Syriac tradition, the translation of the Syriac text here now consequently providing what is the best translation in any modern language. CONTRIBUTORSTim Vivian, California State University, BakersfieldMaged S.A. Mikhail, California State University, FullertonRowan Allen Greer III (1935–2014), an Episcopal priest and Walter H. Gray Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School, was author of Broken Lights and Mended Lives: Theology and Common Life in the Early Church and Anglican Approaches to Scripture: From the Reformation to the Present. Robert Kitchen is a retired minister of the United Church of Canada, living in Regina, Saskatchewan. He read for the D.Phil. (Oxford) in Syriac Language and Literature and has taught Syriac studies in Sweden and Austria. Apostolos N. Athanassakis was Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
£49.99
American University in Cairo Press Iron from Tutankhamun's Tomb
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Ancient Egyptian Architecture in Fifteen Monuments
An authoritatively written overview of ancient Egyptian architecture from the point of view of an archaeologist and architectural historianThe monuments of ancient Egypt have held scholars and tourists in their thrall for centuries. The sheer mass of the pyramids of Giza, the interaction of the temples at Deir al-Bahari with the natural environment, and the use of light in the hypostyle hall of Karnak all make these buildings world-class masterpieces of architecture, rivaling those of Greece and Rome.Ancient Egyptian Architecture in Fifteen Monuments presents an authoritative overview of Egyptian architecture from the point of view of an archaeologist and architectural historian with decades of fieldwork experience in Egypt and elsewhere. It focuses on fifteen selected masterpieces, from well-known structures such as the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur and the temple of Horus at Edfu to lesser-known monuments in Hierakonpolis, Abydos, Hawara, and Bubastis, each building representing an important stage in the development of Egyptian architecture and a different vision of what architecture should aspire to achieve.Using sixty reconstruction drawings and black-and-white photographs, Felix Arnold presents new insights into form, meaning, and the organization of space, providing a fresh perspective on ancient Egyptian culture and society.
£69.99
American University in Cairo Press Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp: A Nine-to-Five Emergency
The politics and governance of Jordan’s Azraq camp for Syrian refugeesAzraq 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.
£50.00
American University in Cairo Press Dream Factory on the Nile Pierre Sioufi Collection of Egyptian Cinema Lobby Cards
£35.10
American University in Cairo Press Fish, Milk, Tamarind: A Book of Egyptian Arabic Food Expressions
GOURMAND AWARD WINNER 2023, BEST ILLUSTRATEDA delightfully illustrated selection of 100 commonly used Egyptian food expressions Can you guess what Egyptians mean when they say that something is “a peeled banana” or that someone is “sleeping in honey” or has "turned the sea to tahini"? You may find the answers quite unexpected when you open the pages of this delightful giftbook featuring some one hundred popular food-inflected phrases and sayings used by native speakers of Egyptian Arabic.Idiomatic expressions lend color, dynamism, and humor to everyday speech, and convey complex ideas and beliefs with an economy of words that also tell us something about the culture from which they spring. Each expression in Fish, Milk, Tamarind is given in Arabic script and English transliteration followed by its literal and intended meanings, while humorous color illustrations throughout help readers visualize and remember the expressions. Learners and native speakers of Arabic, as well as Egypt enthusiasts and language lovers will find much in this book to teach, entertain, and enthrall them.
£15.17
American University in Cairo Press The Night Will Have Its Say: A Novel
International Booker Prize finalist and "one of the Arab world's most innovative novelists" (Roger Allen) delivers a brilliant retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North AfricaThe year is 693 and a tense exchange, mediated by an interpreter, takes place between Berber warrior queen al-Kahina and an emissary from the Umayyad General Hassan ibn Nu'man. Her predecessor had been captured and killed by the Umayyad forces some years earlier, but she will go on to defeat them.The Night Will Have Its Say is a retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa during the seventh century CE, narrated from the perspective of the conquered peoples. Written in Ibrahim al-Koni's unique and enchanting voice, his lyrical and deeply poetic prose speaks to themes that are intensely timely. Through the wars and conflicts of this distant, turbulent era, he addresses the futility of war, the privilege of an elite few at the expense of the many, the destruction of natural habitats and indigenous cultures, and questions about literal and fundamentalist interpretations of religious texts.Al-Koni's masterly account of conquest and resistance is both timeless and timely, infused with a sense of disaster and exile—from language, the desert, and homeland.
£11.99
American University in Cairo Press Ramesses, Loved by Ptah: The History of a Colossal Royal Statue
The dramatic story behind the 3,200-year-old colossal Grand Egyptian Museum Ramesses statueKing 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 130 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.
£19.99
American University in Cairo Press Fayoum Pottery: Ceramic Arts and Crafts in an Egyptian Oasis
NAMED A BEST NEW POTTERY BOOK TO READ IN 2022 BY THE BOOK AUTHORITYLavishly illustrated with over 250 full-color photographs of unique designs and rare methods, providing an in-depth look at the pottery produced in the FayoumThe Fayoum, a broad, fertile depression in Egypt’s Western Desert, known for its great salt lake, its rich green fields, and its unique pharaonic and Greco-Roman remains, is also home to three very different centers of pottery production. The potters of Kom Oshim specialize in decorated garden pots and other utilitarian ware, and guard the special secret of how to make the largest clay vessels in Egypt, up to an extraordinary two and a half meters tall. At al-Nazla, ancient traditions are kept alive, as members of a single extended family continue to use millennia-old techniques passed down from generation to generation, hand-forming among other things their distinctive spherical water jars with amazing dexterity and speed. In the small village of Tunis, the establishment of a pottery school by a Swiss couple in 1990 led to a complete transformation, and the village now hosts more than twenty-five pottery workshops and showrooms, whose products are sold in Cairo, London, and New York.In this lively insight into a varied and vital craft, the author reveals the stories of the three villages and the skilled potters who make their living there, looking at how they learned their trade and how they work, from the preparation of the clay to the formation of the pots on the wheel or by hand, to the decoration, the glazing, and the firing, and finally to the display or distribution and sale of the finished product.For past and future travelers to Egypt, lovers of the craft of pottery, practitioners, and collectors, this beautifully illustrated exploration of the ceramics of the Fayoum will inspire and enchant.
£32.50
American University in Cairo Press The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives
An innovative account of the careers of the Nubians who occupied the Egyptian throne, written by a leading Egyptologist and author of Tutankhamun, King of EgyptThe 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. The latter uncovers some very unsavory examples of the racist attitudes of some earlier scholars. These engendered enduringly negative attitudes to aspects of careers of the Nubian pharaohs that find little support in the actual surviving evidence. The latter includes a fascinating network of texts from not only Egypt and Sudan, but also Assyria and the Bible, reflecting the interactions and conflicts of the period. There are also the standing monuments of Nubian pharaohs, ranging from temples they built throughout their dominions, to their tombs: pyramids, constructed in their ancestral heartland, in which Nubian and Egyptian funerary customs were intriguingly entangled.Richly illustrated in full color throughout, this fascinating book by a leading Egyptologist will be essential reading for anyone interested in the lives and times of Egypt’s Nubian pharaohs.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Educating Egypt: Civic Values and Ideological Struggles
The everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political battles that have shaped Egyptian education, from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of digital disruption in the twenty-firstFrom the 1952 revolution onward, a main purpose of formal education in Egypt was to socialize children and youth into adopting certain attitudes and behaviors conducive to the regimes in power. Control by the state over education was never entirely hegemonic. National education came increasingly under pressure due to a combination of the growing privatization of the education sector, the growth of political Islam, and rapidly changing digital technologies.Educating Egypt traces the everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political and economic contests over education from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of global change and digital disruption in the twenty-first. Its overarching theme is that schooling and education, broadly defined, have consistently mirrored larger debates about what constitutes the model citizen and the educated person. Drawing on three decades of ethnographic research inside Egyptian schools and among Egyptian youth, Linda Herrera asks what happens when education actors harbor fundamentally different ideas about the purpose, provision, and meaning of education. Her research shows that, far from serving as a unifying social force, education is in reality an ongoing battleground of interests, ideas, and visions of the good society.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press The Story of the Banned Book: Naguib Mahfouz's Children of the Alley
An award-winning account of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s most controversial novel and the fierce debates that it provoked Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Children of the Alley has been in the spotlight since it was first published in Egypt in 1959. It has been at times banned and at others allowed, sold sometimes under the counter and sometimes openly on the street, often pirated and only recently legally reprinted. It has inspired anxiety among the secular authorities, rage within the religious right, and a drawing of battle lines among Arab intellectuals and writers. It dogged Mahfouz like a curse throughout the remainder of his career, led to his attempted assassination, and sparked a public debate that continues to this day, even after the author’s death in 2006. It is Egypt’s iconic novel, in whose mirror millions have seen themselves, their society, and even the universe, some finding truth, others blasphemy.In this award-winning account, Mohamed Shoair traces the story of Mahfouz’s novel as a cultural and political object, from its first publication to the present via Mahfouz’s award of the Nobel prize for literature in 1988 and the attempt on his life in 1994. He presents the arguments that swirled about the novel and the wide cast of Egyptian figures, from state actors to secular intellectuals and Islamists, who took part in them. He also contextualizes the interactions among the principal characters, interactions that have done much to shape the country’s present.Extensively researched and written in a lucid, accessible style, The Story of the Banned Book is both a gripping work of investigative journalism and a window onto some of the fiercest debates around culture and religion to have taken place in Egyptian society over the past half-century.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Ottoman Cairo: Religious Architecture from Sultan Selim to Napoleon
A unique, richly illustrated study of Ottoman religious buildings standing today in CairoWith the conquest in 1517 CE of Egypt by the Ottomans, Cairo lost its position as the capital of the Islamic empire to Istanbul but it retained an eminent position as the second most important city, with Egypt still regarded as one of the wealthiest provinces of the new empire. Round minarets with pointed hoods, as symbols of the new rulers, began filling the landscape alongside the octagonal minarets with pavilion tops of the Mamluks, new mosques, zawiyas, and madrasas/takiyas were built to emphasize the continuation of Sunni Islamic rule, while the use of tiles imported from Turkey introduced new decorative styles to the city’s existing rich carvings and marble paneling. This book invites readers and students to revisit a long-overlooked era of Cairo’s architectural evolution, offering a unique, comprehensive study of Ottoman religious buildings still standing today. It provides detailed descriptions and walk-throughs of the buildings covered, visually, through its rich collection of plans, line drawings, and photographs, and through the narrative that infuses each image with life, shedding light on the continuous evolution of architecture in Cairo even after the city had ceased to be the capital of the Islamic empire.
£40.00
American University in Cairo Press The Lady of Zamalek: A Novel
Spanning twentieth-century Egyptian history and opening with the true story of a prominent Cairo businessman’s murder, this rags-to-riches story wondrously combines real-life events with fiction, told by a “magical storyteller”It was in the spring of 1927 that Cairo's attention was captured by the shocking murder of prominent businessman Solomon Cicurel in his Nile-side villa in the upscale Zamalek district. It was a burglary that went wrong, and four culprits were soon arrested. Their trial was concluded swiftly, their punishments were decisive, and society breathed a sigh of relief.In Ashraf El-Ashmawi's telling, there was a fifth accomplice, Abbas, who fled to his home in the countryside to lay low until the murder trial blew over. However, he did not escape empty-handed and kept stolen documents from Cicurel's villa, ones that he imagined would lead him to a hidden safe. Abbas hatched a plan to return to the capital, find the safe, and make his fortune. The first step was to place his sister Zeinab with Cicurel's widow, Paula.Abbas’s rags-to-riches story unfolds as a tale of modern Egypt, taking in the Second World War, the 1952 revolution and rise of Nasser, the 1967 war, and the Sadat and Mubarak eras. Spanning the 1920s to the 1990s, El-Ashmawi deftly weaves together history with fiction in this intriguing English-language debut.
£12.82
American University in Cairo Press New Perspectives on Middle East Politics: Economy, Society, and International Relations
An ideal primer on contemporary Middle East Politics, covering the entire MENA region from an interdisciplinary perspective This compelling volume examines important and cross-cutting themes in the study of contemporary Middle East and North African politics and international relations in the current climate. Drawing together contributions from scholars based within the region and beyond, it weaves together essential interdisciplinary, conceptually rich, and forward-looking content. Chapters cover population and youth, civil–military relations, soft power and geopolitical competition, regionalization and internationalization of conflict, the role of oil in reconstruction efforts, extra-regional actors, environmental politics, and specifically, the Israel–Palestine conflict. Students are supported with an extended and innovative glossary, including key concepts, actors and abbreviations. New Perspectives on Middle East Politics serves as an ideal primer and companion volume for scholars of contemporary Middle East Studies, as well as for policy professionals, journalists and the general reader engaging and re-engaging with the region.Contributor affiliations:Mohamed Abdelraouf, Gulf Research Centre, Jeddah, United Arab EmiratesDina Arakji, Carnegie Middle East Center, Beirut, LebanonEyad AlRefai, Lancaster University, Lancashire, England and King Abdulaziz University, Saudi ArabiaPhilipp Casula, University of Basel, SwitzerlandIshac Diwan, Paris Sciences et Lettres and Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, FranceSeif Hendy, American University in Cairo, EgyptSimon Mabon, Lancaster University, Lancashire, EnglandRobert Mason, Lancaster University, Lancashire, EnglandNeil Partrick, freelance consultant, UK
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Ancient Egyptian Statues: Their Many Lives and Deaths
A fascinating, richly illustrated study of the role and significance of ancient statues in Egyptian history and beliefWhy do ancient Egyptian statues so often have their noses, hands, or genitals broken? Although the Late Antiquity period appears to have been one of the major moments of large-scale vandalism against pagan monuments, various contexts bear witness to several phases of reuse, modification, or mutilation of statues throughout and after the pharaonic period. Reasons for this range from a desire to erase the memory of specific rulers or individuals for ideological reasons to personal vengeance, war, tomb plundering, and the avoidance of a curse; or simply the reuse of material for construction or the need to ritually “deactivate” and bury old statues, without the added motive of explicit hostility toward the subject in question.Drawing on the latest scholarship and over 100 carefully selected illustrations, Ancient Egyptian Statues proceeds from a general discussion of the production and meaning of sculptures, and the mechanisms of their destruction, to review the role of ancient statuary in Egyptian history and belief. It then moves on to explore the various means of damage and their significance, and the role of restoration and reuse.Art historian Simon Connor offers an innovative and lucidly written reflection on beliefs and practices relating to statuary, and images more broadly, in ancient Egypt, showing how statues were regarded as the active manifestations of the entities they represented, and the ways in which they could endure many lives before being finally buried or forgotten.
£39.99
American University in Cairo Press Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt
An examination of the history and waning culture of zar in Egypt, and the world in which Muslim women negotiate relations with spiritsZar is both a possessing spirit and a set of reconciliation rites between the spirits and their human hosts: living in a parallel yet invisible world, the capricious spirits manifest their anger by causing ailments for their hosts, which require ritual reconciliation, a private sacrificial rite practiced routinely by the afflicted devotees. Originally spread from Ethiopia to the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf through the nineteenth-century slave trade, in Egypt zar has incorporated elements from popular Islamic Sufi practices, including devotion to Christian and Muslim saints. The ceremonies initiate devotees—the majority of whom are Muslim women—into a community centered on a cult leader, a membership that provides them with moral orientation, social support, and a sense of belonging. Practicing zar rituals, dancing to zar songs, and experiencing trance restore their well-being, which had been compromised by gender asymmetry and globalization.This new ethnographic study of zar in Egypt is based on the author’s two years of multi-sited fieldwork and firsthand knowledge as a participant, and her collection and analysis of more than three hundred zar songs, allowing her to access levels of meaning that had previously been overlooked. The result is a comprehensive and accessible exposition of the history, culture, and waning practice of zar in a modernizing world.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press From Ibn Sina to Sindbad: A Guided Reader to Classics of Arabic Literature
A unique textbook of guided readings from the great works of Arabic prose for advanced level students of Classical Arabic literature 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 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 this a valuable resource for students and teachers alike.
£36.00
American University in Cairo Press The First Pharaohs: Their Lives and Afterlives
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.
£29.99
American University in Cairo Press Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba: Regional Yemeni Jewelry
The first illustrated study of ethnic silver jewelry in Yemen, by an expert researcher and collector, new in paperbackSilver 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.
£40.00