Modern Egypt: A History
Yoav Di-Capua
Spring 2014
HIS 334E
MES 343 1
ISL 373 5
Classes: T TH 11:00-12:30 WEL 2.312
Office Hours: Garrison 0.136 (History Department). T.TH. 1-2 and by appointment.
e-mail: [email protected]
TA: Shaherzad Ahmadi ([email protected]). Office hours by appointment.
Course Description:
In less than a century Egypt experienced four radically different forms of political
community, economic organization and public culture as it swiftly moved from Colonialism
to Liberalism, Arab-Socialism and Authoritarian Capitalism. A fifth shift, Islamic
Republicanism is pending. In each stage Egypt went through a complete reshuffling of the
state structure and public culture. Each of these phases was experienced with great
emotional intensity. The aim of this class is to critically examine the social, political and
intellectual dynamics which shaped these experiences. What sort of expectations did
Egyptians have in each phase, who came up with these revisionist ideas, and who put them
to work and how?
Course’s Website: http://laits.utexas.edu/modern_me/
Course Requirements and Grading:
Midterm (25%), Final (40%), two Written reports of two single spaced pages each (25%),
Participation 10% Periodical quizzes.
Attendance is mandatory (One grade off (+, -) for more than three classes skipped).
Course Packet: Course packet is available at Jenn’s Copy and Binding 2200 Guadalupe •
[email protected] • 512-473-8669
Deadlines:
- First Report: February 20th (The Open Door)
- Mid-term exam: February 27th (Take home exam)
- Second Report: April 15th (Imarat Yaqubyian)
1
- Final exam: date and time will be announced.
Accommodations: At the beginning of the semester, students with disabilities who need
special accommodations should notify me by presenting a letter prepared by the Services for
Students with Disabilities Office (SSD tel. 471-6259)
Academic Integrity: Students should maintain a high standard of individual honor in his or
her scholarly work. All work handed in by students should be their own work, prepared
without unauthorized assistance. All cases of academic dishonesty will be treated with due
severity. For further information visit the Student Judicial Services website at
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/dos/sjs or call 471-2841
*Please bring a hard copy with your personal annotations to class*
Mandatory Reading Available at Co-op or at bookfinder.com
Alaa Al Aswani, The Yacoubian Building (Cairo: AUC, 2004)
Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000).
James Jankowski, Egypt: A Short History (Oxford: One World, 2000)
Film: selected screening:
Adrift on the Nile (Hussein Kamal, 1971. 115 Min.)
Four Women of Egypt (Tahani Rached Canada/Egypt, 1997, 90 min)
2
Part I: Liberalism without Democracy
Class 1: Introducing Modern Egypt
January 14th
•
Introductory Lecture and Agenda
Class 2: Out of the Ottoman Order: the 19th Century
January 16th
•
•
James Jankowski, Egypt: A Short History (Oxford: One World, 2000), 70-110.
Khaled Fahmi, “The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha, 1805-1848,” Cambridge History of
Egypt Vol. II, pp. 139-180.
Class 3: Nationalism and the Spirit of 1919
January 21st
•
•
•
Blank Map Quiz
M. W, Daly, “The British Occupation, 1882-1922,” Cambridge History of Egypt Vol. II,
pp. 239-251.
James Jankowski, Israel Gershoni, Egypt, Islam and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian
Nationhood, 1900-1930 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 40-55, 77-104.
Class 4: Liberalism without Democracy
January 23rd
•
•
Selma Botman, “The Liberal Age, 1923-1952,” Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. II, pp.
285-308.
James Jankowski, Egypt: A Short History (Oxford: One World, 2000), 111-134.
Class 5: Literary Renaissance and the Middle Class
January 28th
•
•
Israel Gershoni, “The Evolution of National Culture in Modern Egypt: Intellectual
Formation and Social Diffusion, 1892-1945,” Poetics Today, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer
1992), pp. 325-350.
Lucie Ryzova, “Egyptianizing Modernity: The "New Effendiyya" Social and Cultural
Constructions of the Middle Class in Egypt under the Monarchy” in Arthur
3
Goldschmidt, Amy Johnson and Barak Salmoni (eds.), Re-envisioning Egypt (Cairo:
AUC Press, 2005), pp. 124-163.
Class 6: Political Economy, 1919-1952: Part I
September 16th
•
•
Joel Beinin, “Egypt: Society and Economy, 1923-1952,” Cambridge History of Egypt,
Vol. II, pp. 309-333.
Eric Davis, Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920-1941
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 108-133.
Class 7: Political Economy, 1919-1952: Part II
January 30th
•
•
Robert Tignor, “Bank Misr and Foreign Capitalism,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies Vol. 8, No. 2 (Apr. 1977), pp. 161-181.
Robert Vitalis, “On the Theory and Practice of Compradors: The Role of Abbud
Pasha in the Egyptian Political Economy” International Journal of Middle East
Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Aug., 1990), pp. 291-315.
Class 8: The Radicalization of the 1930s
February 4th
Lia Brynjar, The Society of The Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of An
Islamic Mass Movement, 1928-1942 (Reading, England: Ithaca, 1998), pp. 149.
• James Jankowski and Israel Gershoni, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930-1945
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 1-31.
•
Class 9: Liberal Thought: Taha Hussein
February 6th
•
•
Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, pp. 324-340.
Primary Source: Taha Hussein, The Future of Culture in Egypt (New York: Octagon
Books, 1977), Chapters, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12.
4
Class 10: The Cosmopolitan Upper Class
February 11th
•
•
•
Magda Baraka, The Egyptian Upper Class Between Revolutions, 1919-1952 (Reading: Ithaca
Press, 1998), pp. 141-209.
Michael Haag, Alexandria: City of Memory (New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale
University Press, 2004), pp. 1-10.
Samir W. Raaft, Cairo: The Glory Years: Who Built What, When, Why and for Whom
(Alexandria: Harpocrates, 2003), pp.25-35.
Class 11: The Collapse of the Liberal Order
February 13th
•
•
Hamied Ansari, Egypt: The Stalled Society (New York: SUNY, 1986), pp. 57-78.
Joel Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July revolution (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 14-38.
Part II: Nasserism
Class 12: Nassersim: 1952-1961
February 18th
•
•
James Jankowski, Egypt: A Short History (Oxford: One World, 2000), pp. 135-153.
Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair
(Princeton, N.J. 2003), chapters 7-8.
5
Class 13: The New Generation
February 20th
First Report is Due Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door
Take Home Midterm
Examination, Due
February 27th
•
•
•
Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000).
The Burning of Cairo: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/570/special.htm
Book report due.
Class 14: Nasserism as a Civic Experience
February 25th
•
•
•
Film shown in class. A Drift on the Nile
Raymond William Baker, Egypt's Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 70-114.
Joel Gordon, Nasser: Hero of the Arab Nation, pp. 37-94.
Class 15: The Demise of Nasserism
February 27th
Midterm Examination is Due
•
•
•
•
Film shown in class. A Drift on the Nile
Raymond, Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an
Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Cambridge 1985), pp. 11-39.
Joel Gordon, Nasser: Hero of the Arab Nation, pp. 95-116.
Picture Gallery: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/07/09/egypt-1952revolution-free-officers-movement-military-rule/6183/
Part III: Public Life under Sadat and Mubarak
6
MID TERM TAKE HOME EXAM IS DUE
Class 16: Authoritarian Capitalism: Part I
March 4th
•
•
James Jankowski, Egypt: A Short History (Oxford: One World, 2000), pp. 163-198.
Raymond, Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an
Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Cambridge 1985), pp. 40-77.
Class 17: Authoritarian Capitalism: Part II
March 6th
•
•
Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt During the Sadat Years (New York, Palgrave, 2001), pp. 1-38.
Raymond, Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-Populist Development of an
Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Cambridge 1985), pp. 223-256, 289-303.
SPRING BREAK MARCH 10H- 15TH
PART IV: Political Islam
Class 18: The Intellectual History of Political Islam
March 20th
•
•
Kepel, Gilles, The Roots of Radical Islam (London: Saqi, 2005), pp. 23-69.
Zollner, Barbara. "Prison Talk: the Muslim Brotherhood's Internal Struggle During
Gamal Abdel Nasser's Persecution, 1954 to 1971," International Journal of Middle East
Studies 39, no. 03 (August 2007).
Class 19: Political Islam in Action
March 25th
•
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in
Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 21-62.
7
Class 20: Islamism and Education
March 27th
•
•
Starrett, Gregory, Putting Islam to Work Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in
Egypt (Berkeley: Berkeley U. Press, 1998), Ch. 7.
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in
Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Chas. 5-6.
Part V: Themes
Class 21: Religious Minorities
April 1st
•
•
•
Pieternella Van Doorn-Harder, “Copts: Fully Egyptian, but for a Tattoo?” in Maya
Shatzmiller, Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies (Montreal: McGill UP,
2005), pp. 22-57.
“The Egyptian Copts: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Definition of Identity for a
Religious Minority,” in Maya Shatzmiller, Nationalism and Minority, pp. 58-84.
Gudrun Kramer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914-1952 (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1989), pp. 205-222.
Class 22: The Urban Poor
April 3rd
•
•
Diane Singerma, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics and Networks in Urban Quarters
of Cairo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, 1995), pp. 41-73.
Unni Wikan, Life Among the Poor in Cairo (New York: Tavistock Publications, 1980),
pp. 16-64.
Class 23+24: Feminism, Nation and State
April 8th and April 10th
•
•
•
Film: Four Women of Egypt: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c452.shtml
Beth Baron, Egypt as a Women: Nationalism, Gender, Politics (Berkeley: UCP, 2005), pp.
40-56.
Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt
(Princeton: PUP, 1995), pp. 207-219.
8
•
Selma Botman, Engendering Citizenship in Egypt (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1999), pp. 50-74.
Part VI: Revolution and Beyond
Class 27: Imarat Yaqubyian
April 15th
SECOND REPORT IS
DUE
•
•
Discussion of Imarat Yaqubyian
Report Due
Classes 28-31: The Stalled Revolution
The reading material for this section will be distributed electronically.
•
•
April 17th
Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic, Chapter 5 “Egypt’s passive Revolution”
Alaa al-Aswani, On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable?
•
April 22nd
Ahdaf Soueif, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution (2013)
•
April 24th
Documentary Film: The Square (2013)
April 29th and May 1st
Concluding Thoughts
9