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.
A sustained critique of postwar reconstruction in Syria as a politically neutral process In 2011, emboldened by the Arab Spring, the Syrians rose up against their government. The Syrian regime used violence to suppress the protests, so that what began as pro-democracy protests eventually morphed into a civil war with heavy outside intervention. Today, the regime has regained partial control of the country, but large parts of it lie in ruins, millions of Syrians are displaced, and the economy is in freefall. Reconstruction as Violence delves into the complex interplay of post-conflict reconstruction in Syria, challenging the traditionally held dichotomy between the end of violence and the commencement of rebuilding. The contributors to this volume-architects, urbanists, geographers, and historians-employ critical concepts such as urbicide, domicide, and "civilian crisis architecture" to argue against the conventional theoretical frameworks that support a neat separation of phases. They illustrate how reconstruction often extends the dynamics of conflict into the urban and social realms, suggesting that the built environment becomes a battleground for further violence. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging the historical, economic, societal, legal, and bureaucratic contexts that shape reconstruction efforts, arguing for initiatives that prioritize equity, inclusivity, and community participation. Reconstruction as Violence starkly underscores the authors' stance that to overlook any of these dimensions, or to disengage from the reconstruction process altogether, represents a political choice with potentially detrimental effects on Syria and beyond in the Arab world, where countries like Palestine, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan are undergoing similar cycles of destruction and rebuilding. It calls for a reimagined approach to reconstruction, one that fosters peace, resilience, and social justice in post-conflict societies. Contributors:Sawsan Abou Zainedin, Madaniya, London, UKAmmar Azzouz, University of Oxford, UKValérie Clerc, Université Paris Cité, FranceEmma Katherine DiNapoli, human rights lawyer, London, UKOmar Ferwati, Goldsmiths, University of London, UKRim Lababidi, architect and independent scholar, Ohio, USAWendy Pullan, University of Cambridge, UKNasser Rabbat, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USAHashim Sarkis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USADeen Sharp, London School of Economics, UKHeghnar Watenpaugh, University of California Davis, CA, USA
Food as culture in literature and the artsThis issue of Alif seeks to contribute to current scholarship on food and foodways. Food, here, emerges as a way to construct identities--both individual and national--and as a means of addressing familial, social, and religious issues, thereby providing a valuable critical approach, not just to literature and the arts, but to the humanities and social sciences as well. CONTRIBUTORS: Emad Abdul-latif, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.Randa Aboubakr, Cairo University, EgyptShereen Abouelnaga, Cairo University, EgyptAsaad Alsaleh, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USAIsabella Altoé, Queen's University, Ontario, CanadaYasmin Amin, Orient-Institute Beirut, Beirut, LebanonNada Ayad, The Cooper Union, New York City, New York, USADavid Bell, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USASayyed Daifallah, The Academy of Arts, Cairo, EgyptAnusha D'souza, University of Mumbai, IndiaAnny Gaul, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USAWalid Ghabbour, Port Said University, Port Said, EgyptMagda Hasabelnaby, Ain Shams University, Cairo, EgyptMohja Kahf, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USAAdham Masaoud Al Kak, Levant Center for Cultural Studies, Cairo, Egypt Ezzat El Kamhawi, Egyptian author, Cairo, EgyptMousa M. Khoury, Birzeit University, Ramallah, PalestineTheresa Moran, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USASalma Serry, University of Toronto, Ontario, CanadaOmer Taher, Egyptian Author, Cairo, Egypt
World-renowned archaeologist Zahi Hawass weaves a spellbinding narrative about how the pyramids were built and why, new in paperback Nearly five thousand years ago, the fourth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom reigned over a highly advanced civilization. Believed to be gods, the royal family lived amid colossal palaces and temples built to honor them and their deified ancestors. In Mountains of the Pharaohs, Zahi Hawass brings these extraordinary historical figures to life, detailing a soap opera-like saga complete with murder, incest, and the triumphant ascension to the throne of one of only four queens ever to rule Egypt. It was during this dynasty that the magnificent pyramids of Giza were built. These monuments attest not only to the dynasty's supreme power, but also to the engineering expertise and architectural sophistication that flourished under its rule. Hawass tells the complete story of the pyramids, weaving archaeological data with a history of Egypt's powerful pharaohs, and argues that the pyramids--including the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World still standing--were built by skilled craftsmen who took great pride in their work. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs and drawings, Mountains of the Pharaohs is a compelling account of one of civilization's greatest achievements.
The paradoxes of nineteenth-century colonialism in the Middle East revealed through the accounts of three working class European travelers to Egypt This book tells the stories of two French women and a French African man, travelers connected to the Saint-Simonian utopian socialists, who came to work for the Egyptian government in the 1830s. They have been marginalized and excluded from the historical record, because they were women, not part of the colonial elite, or of mixed racial heritage. This history brings them alive through extensive archival research and vibrant storytelling. There is Suzanne Voilquin, a practicing midwife in Cairo who was involved in left-wing popular politics in Paris and became the editor of one of the first feminist newspapers ever published (1832-34). The second traveler, Thomas Ismayl Urbain, was born in French Guyana, where his mother was born a slave and his father was a French sea captain. "Jehan d'Ivray" is the pen name of the third traveler, a teenage woman who married an Egyptian studying medicine in France, and traveled with him to Egypt in 1879. She wrote more than twenty books, including a retrospective look at Suzanne Voilquin and women in the Saint-Simonian movement, bringing the story full circle to another generation. Their stories brilliantly illustrate the paradoxes of nineteenth century colonialism in Egypt. Suzanne Voilquin grew up in the Parisian working class and sympathized deeply with Egyptians but initially exoticized the differences between Egypt and her home country, while Urbain, a literary pioneer in black pride, nevertheless joined the French army and saw his role in the colonial occupation as a means of helping indigenous people. These characters transcend the neat binary of East and West and offer a rich, nuanced window onto the experiences of French travelers in Egypt during the nineteenth century.
WINNER OF THE SAWIRIS CULTURAL AWARD A multigenerational literary memoir that sheds new light on one of the Arab world's most renowned Romantic poets, through the eyes of his granddaughter Ibrahim Nagui (1898-1953) was one of the Arab world's most important Romantic poets writing in Arabic during the first half of the twentieth century. A founding member of the Apollo school, he also published widely in the fields of medicine, nutrition, psychology, sociology, and translation. This multigenerational, genre-crossing work of literary nonfiction sheds new light on Nagui through the eyes of his granddaughter, literary scholar Samia Mehrez. Nagui is best known for his poem al-Atlal ("the Ruins"), which was later sung by legendary Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum. Drawing on a series of family archives, including Nagui's own published and unpublished writings, Mehrez embarks on a journey through multiple languages, generations, and geographies, as she comes to reconcile with the shadow of her grandfather, who died two years before she was born. Mehrez unpacks many of the myths surrounding Nagui and in doing so, reflects on how he impacted her own career as a literary critic.
Illustrated publications and the role of market forces in shaping representations of Egypt at a time when European colonial interests in the region were at their peak, with 80 color and black and white illustrations In the nineteenth century, following Napoleon Bonaparte's 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East. Visualizing Egypt analyzes the context and process of production of these highly illustrated publications, from their conceptualization to the finished product and its afterlife, from marketing to the sales of these books, and from circulation to their reception by nineteenth-century audiences. By tracing the long, arduous, and often risky publishing journeys of the makers of these books, including publishers, writers, and artists, such as the Frenchman Ãmile Prisse d'Avennes, Paulina Banas reveals a complex terrain of changing market demands, collaborations, and conflicting views, and the unsettled authorship of these works, prompting us to think more profoundly about artistic and intellectual exchange in the world of nineteenth-century Orientalist book production. Visualizing Egypt considers nineteenth-century book illustrations on Egypt and the "Orient" not merely as expressions of enduring ideology and colonial propaganda, but as representations shaped by the often-overlooked commercial exigencies of the growing publishing industry and the reckless competition within it.
A new collection of essays on food production and distribution in the Arab world and their sociocultural and political implications In recent years, the food question has been a central concern for politicians, economists, international organizations, activists and NGOs alike, as well as social scientists at large. This interest has emerged from the global food crisis and its impact on the environment and the political economy and security of the global south, as well as the expansion of scholarly studies relating food issues to agrarian questions with the objective of developing theoretical frameworks that would allow for a critical analysis of the current food issues at historical, cultural, social, political and economic levels. In this context, Cairo Papers organized its 2016 symposium around the food question in the Middle East. Papers in this collection address the food question from both its food and agricultural aspects, and approach it as the site of political and economic conflicts, as the means of sociocultural control and distinction, and as the expression of national and ethnic identities. ContributorsHabib Ayeb, Université Paris VIII à St-Denis, Saint Denis, FranceHala N. Barakat, freelance environmentalist and food researcher, Cairo, EgyptEllis Goldberg (d. 2019), University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USAChristian Henderson, Leiden University, Leiden, The NetherlandsKhaled Mansour, independent writer and consultant, Cairo, EgyptSaker El Nour, independent researcher, Free University Berlin, Berlin, GermanySara Pozzi, independent scholar, Manchester, UKSara El Sayed, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
"This ethnographic study of the Egyptian underground hip-hop scene examines the artists who collectively molded the scene and analyzes their practices and explores how these artists have interacted with and responded to political and social upheaval and change. It reveals how rappers approached and reformulated the genre in times of revolution and stasis to reveal how rap acts as a multi-layered form of expression. More specifically, it examines the location of the art form within the broader history of oppositional cultural expression in Egypt, outlining the artists' oppositions to various hegemonic structures and critically deconstructing them to reveal that they often reflect dominant ideology"--
A collection of studies looking at social and political changes following Egypt's 2011 RevolutionEgypt is a country of its people. What has been the effect on its inhabitants of the 2011 revolution and subsequent developments? In 2013, a conference held under the auspices of Cairo Papers in Social Science examined this issue from the points of view of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and urban planners. The papers collected here reveal the strategies that various actors employed in this situation. ContributorsZeinab Abul-Magd, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, USAYasmine Ahmed, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, EgyptDeena Abdelmonem, independent scholar, Cairo, EgyptSandrine Gamblin, European Universities in Egypt, Cairo, EgyptEllis Goldberg (d. 2019), University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USAClement M. Henry, University of Singapore, SingaporeDina Makram-Ebeid, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, EgyptHans Christian Korsholm Nielsen, Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute, Cairo, EgyptDavid Sims, economist and urban planner, Cairo, Egypt
A study of workers' rights in a non-unionized field in Lebanon This study examines the process of unionizing domestic workers in Lebanon, highlighting the potentialities as well as the obstacles confronting it, and looks at the multiple power relations involved through axes of class, gender, race, and nationality. The author situates this struggle within the larger scene of the labor union 'movement' in the country, and discusses the contribution of women's rights organizations in rendering visible cases of abuse against migrant domestic workers. She argues that the 'death' of class politics has made women's rights organizations address migrant domestic worker issues as a separate labor category, further contributing to their production as an 'exception' under neoliberalism.
"The idioms have been collected to showcase the use of the Egyptian word illi, in itself a fascinating linguistic anomaly 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 is covers a wide array of meanings and contexts-packed full of expressions that will console, threaten, encourage, and much more-and is sure to entertain and inform."--
"Although teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) has grown inexorably in recent decades, there is a dearth of empirical research on the TAFL classroom experience. In this insightful volume, Dalal Abo El Seoud brings together up-to-date practice-based research and conceptual contributions by eighteen professionals in the field. These address a wide range of challenges in teaching Arabic as a foreign language and ways of overcoming them with a clear eye to twenty-first-century language-learning skills, which advocate communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The chapters address curriculum design, teaching Arabic to non-English speakers, trends in the use of technology, motivating students, teaching Arabic language varieties, and teaching language skills. This volume will be an invaluable resource for teachers and teachers in training of TAFL and for scholars and researchers in the field."--
"By the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached a record high of 100 million, the highest figure since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban political takeover in Afghanistan exacerbated an already protracted global refugee situation, but climate-related events also played a part in forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of more habitable living areas. Making Routes: Mobility and the Politics of Migration in the Global South provides fresh understandings of mobility flows, transnational linkages, and the politics of migration across the Global South, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moving away from North-South, East-West binaries and challenging the conception that migratory movements are primarily unidirectional-from South to North-it explores how state policies, migrants' trajectories, nationalism and discrimination, and art and knowledge production unfold in places as widespread as Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Seventeen academics, activists, and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and international relations reveal the diverse narratives, migration patterns, forms of agency, and laws that make up the complex reality of South-South migration, offering vital new pathways for research in migration studies today."--
"Palestinian Music in Exile is a historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate and undocumented locations. The stories taking center stage show creatively divergent and revolutionary performance springing from conditions of colonialism, repression, and underdevelopment. What role does music play in the social spaces of Palestinian exile? How are the routes and roadblocks to musical success impacted by regional and international power structures? And how are questions of style, genre, or national tradition navigated by Palestinian musicians? Based on seven years of research in Europe and the Middle East, this timely and inspiring collection of musical ethnographies is the first oral history of contemporary Palestinian musicianship to appear in book form, and the only study to encompass such a broad range of experiences of the ghurba, or place of exile."--
"Oral history archives have always been at the forefront of liberatory social movements in general, and of feminist movement in particular. Until the end of the twentieth century in the Arab world, archives of women's oral narratives were almost non-existent with the exception of small documentation efforts tied to individual research. However, since 2011, there has been a marked increase in the documentation of projects. In this context, the Women and Memory Forum organized a conference in 2015 about the challenges of creating gender sensitive oral history archives in times of change. The papers in this collection shed light on documentation initiatives in Arab countries in transitional and conflict situations, in addition to international experiences. They engage with questions around archives and power, the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies to the making and preserving of archives, ethical concerns in the construction of archives, women's archives and the production of alternative knowledge, as well as conceptual and methodological issues in oral history. Contributors: Faiha Abdulhadi, Sondra Hale, Manal Hamzeh, Maissan Hassan, Nahawand El Kaderi Issa, Diana Magdy, Jean Said Makdisi, Noor Nieftagodien, Rafif Saidawy, Lucine Taminian, Stephen Urgola"--
"Founded in 1859, as part of the Suez Canal project and named after Khedive Said, the city of Port Said has always stood at the juncture of global, national, and local networks of forces, the city itself a reflection of many layers of Egypt's modern history, from its colonial past through to the eras of national liberation and neoliberalism. Drawing on Bruno Latour's and Henri Lefebvre's conceptual works, this study examines how the 'social' (encompassing all aspects of human life-the political, the economic, and the social) of the city of Port Said was created, and how its spaces were mutually produced and transformed through the practices of both dwellers and the state. Looking also at the temporality of these processes, Mostafa Mohie examines three key moments: al-tahgir (the forced migration that followed the outbreak of the 1967 war and remained until 1974, when Port Saidians were permitted to return to their homes following the 1973 October War); the declaration of the free trade zone in the mid-1970s; and the Port Said Stadium massacre in 2012."--
"There is a great deal to be said about ideas and imaginations of the "future" when one does not have the luxury of maintaining a slot in the present. In the midst of acute conditions of precarity and structural violences and vulnerabilities of different forms (political, economic, social, infrastructural) and magnitudes, Egyptians find ways to adapt and adjust, even experiment, with different arrangements and forms of connectedness. By following, tracing, and accompanying friends and networks of friendship in and across Egypt's two biggest cities, Cairo and Alexandria, this ethnographic account aims to highlight some of the contemporary meanings, forms, and purposes of friendship among young Egyptians with the aim of renewing and reviving the question, "What can friendships do?" Against a backdrop of conditions of precarity and the ruins of finance capitalism, this study examines the manifestations of how the relationship of friendship manages to re-invent and re-define itself. Moreover, it asks whether new modes of relationality, companionship, and intimacy can be cultivated and practiced given the current neoliberal conditions of living. The questions that this study attempts to open up are focused on the re-workings, reconfigurations, and re-makings of practices of sociality and intimacy between friends."--
"In 1957 the public sector in Egyptian cinema was established, followed shortly by the emergence of public-sector film production in 1960, only to end eleven years later, in 1971. Assailed with negativity since its demise, if not earlier, this state adventure in film production was dismissed as a complete failure, financially, administratively and, most importantly, artistically. Although some scholars have sporadically commented on the role played by this sector, it has not been the object of serious academic research aimed at providing a balanced, nuanced general assessment of its overall impact. This issue of Cairo Papers hopes to address this gap in the literature on Egyptian cinema. After discussion of the role played by the public sector in trying to alleviate the financial crisis that threatened the film industry, this study investigates whether there was a real change in the general perception of the cinema, and the government's attitude toward it, following the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war."--
"This issue of Cairo Papers takes up the various dimensions of migration and refugees in the Euro-Mediterranean region over different periods in the last two centuries. It looks at both the migration of waves of Italians and Greeks to Egypt from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and at migration from the Arab southern and eastern rims of the Mediterranean to Europe starting in the twenty-first century. The disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and political science have been mobilized to undertake the research its chapters embody. They address the history of migration in the region, relations between Mediterranean countries of origin and their diasporas, the impact of interest groups on the formulation of migration policies in countries of destination, and the policies for integration of recent flows arriving in Europe. The chapters are based on papers delivered at Cairo Papers 25th annual symposium in collaboration with the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies"--
"This volume brings together leading experts from a range of disciplines to examine aspects of the daily lived experiences of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority from late Antiquity to the present. In doing so, it serves as a supplement and a corrective to institutional or theological narratives, which are generally rooted in studying the wielders of historical power and control. Studies in Coptic Culture and Community reveals the humanity of the Coptic tradition, giving granular depth to how Copts have lived their lives through and because of their faith for two thousand years. The first three sections consider in turn the breadth of the daily life approach, perspectives on poverty and power in a variety of different contexts, and matters of identity and persecution. The final section reflects on the global Coptic diaspora, bringing themes studied for the early Coptic Church into dialog with Coptic experiences today. These broad categories help to link fundamental questions of socio-religious history with unique aspects of Coptic culture and its vibrant communities of individuals."--
""The First Upper Egyptian nome, with its capital, Elephantine, was important in ancient times, as it stood on the southern border between Egypt and the Nubian provinces above the First Cataract. Since 2008, Alejandro Jimâenez-Serrano has led an archaeological mission at the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa, where Elephantine's high officials are buried. In Descendants of a Lesser God, he draws on textual records and archaeological data, together with new evidence from his work at the tombs, to cast fresh historiographical light on the dynastic dynamics of these ruling elites. Jimâenez-Serrano analyzes the origin of the local elites of Elephantine, and their role in trade and international relations with Nubia and neighboring regions, from the end of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom. He explores the development of these power groups, organized as they were in complex households, which in many ways emulated the functioning of the royal court. Delving deeply into the funerary world, he also highlights the relationship between social memory and political legitimacy through his examination of the mortuary cult of a late Old Kingdom governor of Elephantine, Heqaib, who was transformed into a local divinity and later claimed as the mythic ancestor of the ruling family of Elephantine. The history of ancient Egypt has traditionally been written from a court perspective. This new history of a strategically important region not only modifies existing perceptions of provincial life in the Middle Kingdom among the elites, but also introduces new evidence to support more complex and detailed reconstructions of the dynastic families in power.""--
""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.""--
"Until the year 2000, Cairo had been a model megacity, relatively crime free, safe, and public facing. It featured a thriving public culture and vibrant street life. In recent decades, however, the Egyptian state has accelerated a wholesale dismantlement of public education and public sector jobs and reversed the modest land reforms of the Nasser era. As a result, the vast majority of Cairo's people have been forcibly deprived of their social rights, social goods, and educational capital. Eschewing the traditional focus on top-down regime and state security, the contributors to this volume, who represent a wide array of academics, activists, artists, and journalists, explore how repressive policies affect the everyday lives of citizens. They show the ways in which urban security crises are politically fashioned and do not emanate from the urban social fabric on their own: city crime, violence, and fear are created by specific means of extraction, production, and control. Another kind of city can live again. But how? By tackling a range of issues, including public health, transportation, labor safety, and housing and property distribution, Cairo Securitized unsettles simplistic binaries of thug and police, public versus private, and slum versus enclave, and proposes compelling new ways in which securitizing processes can be reversed, reengineered, and replaced with a participatory and equitable urban order."--
A rich exploration of sibling bonds in literature and the artsThis issue of Alif explores representations of brotherhood/sisterhood in literature and the arts. What does it mean to be part of a brotherly/sisterly bond? And what do such bonds entail, positively or otherwise? These questions have been extensively posed and revisited in a variety of traditions old and new. Sibling relations, here defined, can also transcend kinship and blood relations to include shared causes and values, such as political solidarity and gender equality.Contributors:Shereen Abouelnaga, Cairo University, Egypt Abdelrahman Abuabed, independent scholar, Doha, Qatar Karam AbuSehly, Beni-Suef University, Egypt Saad Al-Bazei, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Mariam Elashmawy, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Safaa Fathy, poet, essayist, and filmmaker, France Anna 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
"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"--
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