“Our inheritance was left to us by no testament” – René Char
If you are a PhD student in Middle Eastern Studies and based at a university in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, or Iceland, then apply to this workshop. I will be giving the keynote lecture, “Thinking with metaphor in a literal era” on 19 August 2021.
More info: https://www.nsmes.org/2021call
Come join us for the virtual book launch of “Global Middle East: Into the Twenty-First Century” on Friday 12 March, at 12pm Chicago time (8pm Cairo time) which will feature a discussion by the editors/authors Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera, as well as a number of the book’s authors including Amro Ali, Ahmed Kanna, Khaled Fahmy, Hamid Dabashi, Ted Swedenburg, Laleh Khalili, Fatemeh Keshavarz, John Tofik Karam, Michael Frishkopf, Sami Zubaida, and Waleed Hazbun. The book is available through the University of California Press.
I’m giving my first human-to-human public lecture in over a year. As in no zoom or webinar, it’s an actual physical flesh and blood presenter and audience dynamic 🙂. This will be on 24th February at the French institute, in English, and entry is free. Social distancing and masking rules apply.
“If every city was to have a defining ethos, a running theme, a word that sums up (or a major part of) the DNA of the respective city, then Alexandria could arguably be the city of nostalgia. Loss, longing, melancholia, and a yearning for anything but the present, have long been entrenched in the city’s contemporary era. This lecture will explore the dynamics that constitute the makeup of nostalgia in Egypt’s second city. It examines the socio-linguistic framework, historical imaginaries, second city syndrome, sense of civic defeat, and the flourishing of an online archival culture, among other factors, that underpin the protracted relationship between Alexandria and nostalgia.”
A zoom lecture on approaching an MA and PhD for students at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (a repeat public lecture coming soon).
“In this podcast episode, AGYA member Dr. Amro Ali from Egypt and AGYA alumnus Dr. Kalman Graffi from Germany discuss Coronavirus warning apps, delving into their advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness from both a technological and ethical point of view.”
The event on knowledge production took place at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities on 18 January 2020. I argued that if we do not address the scourge of passport restrictions and visa regimes, then the pace and orientation of holistic, transnational, and interdisciplinary knowledge production in the Arab world will continue to be skewed.
AGYA blurb: “With its contribution, AGYA invites the visitors to a critical examination of established concepts and patterns of perception of the world, the other and the self from German and Arab perspectives. AGYA is proud to present a program ranging from a panel discussion on ‘Scientific Worlds: Critical Reflections on Knowledge Production’, over a book launch of ‘Insatiable Appetite. Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond’ edited by AGYA alumni and enriched by a tasting of different Hummus recipes, to a poetry slam and a photo exhibition on ‘Images of the Self and the Other in the Levant’”
On 1-2 December 2019, the international AGYA workshop aims to explore the meaning of cosmopolitanism in Western and Islamic traditions and will provide a forum to investigate the mutual influences in the intellectual history of the concept in different cultural and intellectual traditions.
The concept of cosmopolitanism has always played an important role in philosophical and theological texts of various cultures, including Arab, European, Indian or Persian cultures. In its core, the concept of cosmopolitanism defines all human beings as world citizens— ‘kosmopolites’ in Greek—who thus are all part of a single universal community. The concept of ‘universality’ or cosmopolitanism also roots in Islamic theology and philosophy: in the history of Islamic thought, universalism is based on the concept of a shared humanity and equality. The unity of world citizens transcends all cultural differences or political borders, based mostly on a shared notion of morality.
In the eighteenth century, a cosmopolitan was a person that was open-minded, led a sophisticated life-style, and liked to travel. In current language, these are still some characteristics we are referring to today, when naming someone a cosmopolitan. Nowadays, cosmopolitanism is receiving more scholarly attention again: in the context of globalization, new (communication) technologies, and increasing digitization, there is a need to reflect in philosophical terms on the new prospects for the individual to interact and communicate with his or her fellow world citizens.
The AGYA conference focuses on intercultural exchange and its influence on the construction of moral and cultural paradigms. This is a rather new approach, considering the history of the concept of cosmopolitanism and the many contemporary moral, socio-political, and economic definitions existing in parallel today.
I’ll be presenting a short talk on the Theatre of Thought project in Egypt and the ways in which philosophy can be brought to the public to address social problems.
The panel session starts at 3pm, 9 November 2019, at Freie Universität Berlin, Silberlaube Hörsaal 1a, as part of the AGYA conference that explores the place of humanities in Germany and the Arab world.
I will be giving a seminar “How society functions under authoritarian repression in the Middle East” at the Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Amsterdam on 7 November 2019, at 11am.
I will be giving a talk and participating in a debate before an audience of EU and MENA youth hosted by the Friends of Europe (FoE) and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation (ALF) on 4th and 5th November 2019 in Brussels.
“In an era in which we are facing global issues that demand quick and effective collective action, such as climate change, migration and growing inequalities, both politicians and citizens appear to be distracted and paralysed by polarisation. Trust in the rational and stable middle ground of deliberative party politics is disappearing, with people instead opting for strong emotions, populistic rhetoric and big personalities. Issues related to national identity, cultural values and ethnic origins have been prominent in the political debate worldwide, causing not only political division, but also cultural and social polarisation.
Many governments are unable to respond adequately to the growing social, ethnic and religious conflicts – or oftentimes even foment these tensions. Instead, antagonistic narratives seem to be the only way of conceiving the vote. Societal debate has been hijacked by the more extreme movements that instigate high-tension debates, in which more moderate voices and much needed debates about common concerns such as climate change are losing power and influence.
What is the glue binding us together for the future? What can be done to encourage moderate voices? How can we counter social and political polarisation?”