Bøger udgivet af American University in Cairo Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After coming to Vienna from Sudan to win a better life for himself, Hamza struggles to escape from the margins of society and the stigma of the immigrant. Following several years of hardship, his fortunes begin to change when he meets Sandra, a young Austrian woman, who shows him the Palm House. In this famous Viennese greenhouse, the frost of Hamza's heart begins to thaw, and he slowly opens himself to Sandra, revealing his bitter yet beautiful past in Sudan and beyond. This masterful novel draws on the 1001 Nights as well as Sudanese folk traditions, and demonstrates the remarkable power of storytelling to overcome even the most dire circumstances. Critically acclaimed across the Arab world, this novel can be read on its own, or as a sequel to Eltayeb's first novel, Cities without Palms (AUC Press, 2009).

This issue of Alif investigates the different strata constituting texts, and the presence of older material (myths, classics, hymns, rituals, romance, philosophical fragments, etc.) as subtexts in literature. Articles explore the processes and modalities of such inclusions in a given work or the corpus of an author. The issue also includes critical essays on the nature of continuity and correspondence in plots, characters, and styles as well as redeployment of older motifs in modern and postmodern works.Contributors: English section: Walid Bitar, Leslie Croxford, Ananya Kabir, Rondo Keele, Steven Nimis, John Rodenbeck, Edward Said, Doris Shoukri, Mounira Soliman, Steffen Stelzer.Arabic section: Mohammed 'Ajina, Mohammed Birairi, Ayman Al-Desouky, Hasab al-Sheikh Ja'far, Scheherazade Hassan, Sami Mahdi, Samia Mehrez, Mai Muzaffar/Rafa Nasiri, Lamis Al-Nakkash/Doris Shoukri, Nagwa Sha'ban.

This issue of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics is devoted to the intersection of the imaginary and the documentary, the fictional and the cultural in the three genres of literature (poetry, fiction, and drama), in history, in film (feature and documentary), in photography, in plastic arts, and in architecture. Collage in art, portrait paintings, political poetry, archival footage in films, the historical novel, and the metaphors of historiography are some of the examples that demonstrate the interfacing between the imaginary and the documentary. Subjectivity and ideology of the artist and scholar might be couched in a flight of fantasy or in a rational argument, but in both cases they are joined to a specific worldview that is analyzed and discussed.

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

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

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

A meticulous study of the social, economic, and religious significance of coffin reuse and development during the Ramesside and early Third Intermediate periods Funerary datasets are the chief source of social history in Egyptology, and the numerous tombs, coffins, Books of the Dead, and mummies of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties have not been fully utilized in this regard, mostly because the data of this time period is scattered and difficult to synthesize. This culmination of fifteen years of coffin study analyzes coffins and other funerary equipment of elites from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-second Dynasties to provide essential windows into social strategies and adaptations employed during the Bronze Age collapse and subsequent Iron Age reconsolidation. Many of the Twentieth to the Twenty-second Dynasty coffins show evidence of reuse from other, older coffins, as well as obvious marks where gilding or inlay have been removed. Innovative vignettes painted onto coffin surfaces reflect new religious strategies and coping mechanisms within this time of crisis. Advances in mummification techniques meanwhile reveal an Egyptian anxiety about long-term burial without coffins as a new style of stuffed and painted mummy was developed for the wealthy, and a complex coffin style emerged due to long-term burial without painted tomb chapels. The first part of this book focuses on the theory and evidence of coffin reuse and the social collapse that characterized the Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties, while the second part presents a collection of photo-essays of annotated visual data for about a hundred Egyptian coffins, most of them from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

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

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