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The Africa Institute will host Professor Hanan Kholoussy, Associate Professor of History at The American University in Cairo to share her research titled, “Edges of Egypt, Interiors of Africa” on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) in The Africa Institute Auditorium (Location Map).
This seminar presents Kholoussy’s preliminary research on the history of the production and consumption of the modern beach in Egypt. In this context, beach tourism has surpassed cultural tourism in the land of the pyramids. The stark strips of sand along the Red and Mediterranean Seas have been transformed into microcosms of the nation, where power and resistance play out more freely, fluidly, and forcefully beyond the gaze and grasp of the centralized modern state and its urban centers. For both Egypt’s local and foreign populations, the beach has become a significant space for cultural, sociopolitical, and economic interactions from the nineteenth century to the present day.
The seminar aims to trace the history of this process, exploring how, when, and why Egypt’s beach development occurred. It also raises the question of how our understanding of the modern nation changes when viewed in relation to its coastal edges. Given the public debates about ‘Afrocentricism’ in contemporary Egyptian popular discourse, Kholoussy’s objective is to examine the importance of situating Egypt as part of Africa and highlighting its close ties and shared heritage.
Hanan Kholoussy earned a joint Ph.D. with distinction in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University, and a joint B.S./M.A. with honors in foreign service and Arab studies from Georgetown University. She is the author of For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis That Made Modern Egypt (Stanford, 2010) and co-editor of Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage, Crisis, and Nation (Oxford, 2016). She has published several articles on marriage, gender, Islamic law, and Egyptian history and has been a frequent media commentator on Egypt’s marriage crisis.
The seminar will be moderated by John Thabiti Willis, Associate Professor of African History, The Africa Institute.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
The Africa Institute will host Professor Hanan Kholoussy, Associate Professor of History at The American University in Cairo to share her research titled, “Edges of Egypt, Interiors of Africa” on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) in The Africa Institute Auditorium (Location Map).
The Africa Institute will host Professor Hanan Kholoussy, Associate Professor of History at The American University in Cairo to share her research titled, “Edges of Egypt, Interiors of Africa” on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 (12:00 noon – 02:00 pm) in The Africa Institute Auditorium (Location Map).
This seminar presents Kholoussy’s preliminary research on the history of the production and consumption of the modern beach in Egypt. In this context, beach tourism has surpassed cultural tourism in the land of the pyramids. The stark strips of sand along the Red and Mediterranean Seas have been transformed into microcosms of the nation, where power and resistance play out more freely, fluidly, and forcefully beyond the gaze and grasp of the centralized modern state and its urban centers. For both Egypt’s local and foreign populations, the beach has become a significant space for cultural, sociopolitical, and economic interactions from the nineteenth century to the present day.
The seminar aims to trace the history of this process, exploring how, when, and why Egypt’s beach development occurred. It also raises the question of how our understanding of the modern nation changes when viewed in relation to its coastal edges. Given the public debates about ‘Afrocentricism’ in contemporary Egyptian popular discourse, Kholoussy’s objective is to examine the importance of situating Egypt as part of Africa and highlighting its close ties and shared heritage.
Hanan Kholoussy earned a joint Ph.D. with distinction in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University, and a joint B.S./M.A. with honors in foreign service and Arab studies from Georgetown University. She is the author of For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis That Made Modern Egypt (Stanford, 2010) and co-editor of Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage, Crisis, and Nation (Oxford, 2016). She has published several articles on marriage, gender, Islamic law, and Egyptian history and has been a frequent media commentator on Egypt’s marriage crisis.
The seminar will be moderated by John Thabiti Willis, Associate Professor of African History, The Africa Institute.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
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