Guides have been written to the city of Cairo for generations. Whether they’re for foreigners who’ve come to the city or its residents. However, it might be safe to say thatA Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo (American University in Cairo Press, 2018) is a beast unto itself. It takes the names of streets in Central Cairo and uses them as a bas ... Show More
Yesterday
Najati Sidqi, "Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist: The Secret Life of Najati Sidqi" (U Texas Press, 2025)
In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, Sidqi concealed a critical component of his life from the world and his family. He was an underground activist for the Palestinian ... Show More
25m 54s
Jan 29
Yossef Rapoport, "Becoming Arab: The Formation of Arab Identity in the Medieval Middle East" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Today, much of the Middle East is “Arab”—an identity that now extends across North Africa and up through the Near East to Syria. Yet how did this region become Arab? How did this identity spread? Was it due to migration, or conquest? Historian Yossef Rapoport, in his book Becomi ... Show More
41m 38s
Jan 26
Adam Bursi, "Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Adam Bursi’s Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam (Edinburg University Press, 2024) uses writings by early Muslims to map a history of material objects, relics, and tombs of prophetic figures as they were conceptualized in the 8th and 9th centuries. The ... Show More
56m 59s
Feb 2024
Decolonizing & Decentering Theater in the Arab World | Laila Soliman
A captivating conversation with theater director and playwright Laila Soliman about theater, cultural discourse and decolonization across the Arab world. Using three of her major works – Zigzag, La Grande Maison and her first opera Woman at Point Zero – as reference, we discuss w ... Show More
59m 39s
Mar 2023
CLIVE HOLES | History of Standard Arabic | Conversations
<p>Clive Holes talks about the relationship between standard and non-standard Arabic, cultural myths of the history of Arabic, and the vectors impacting the evolution of Arabic.</p><p>Clive Holes received his education from High Arcal Grammar School, Trinity Hall (Cambridge Unive ... Show More
1h 9m