Syllabus

Tourist Police in Giza

 

Course Objectives

These are the 5 objectives of the course as determined by the students in the course:

1. Learn about and immerse yourself in Egyptian culture through conversations and experiences.

2. Gain a basic understandin of Arabic.

3. Examine political and economic factors affecting development.

4. Learn Egyptian history to better understand the present and vice versa.

5. Understand Egypt’s place in the region and the rest of the world.

 

Assignments

The weight of the course assignments as determined by the students in the course:

• 10% Pre-Departure Paper (4 pages – due 5/22/09)
• 15% Journal 1
• 15% Journal 2
• 05% Discussion Leadership
• 15% Engaged and Constructive Participation
• 25% Post-Return Final Paper (10 pages – due 7/1/09)
• 15% Journal 3 (Completed Journal)

SCHEDULE OF READINGS

 

Prior to Arrival

• Preparatory readings and paper:
  • Max Rodenbeck. Cairo: A City Victorious. American University in Cairo Press, entire.  
  • Alaa al-Aswany. The Yacoubian Building. Harper-Collins, entire.

 Thursday, May 28

• Check in to hotel and rest
  • Coursepacks will be available in your room upon check-in.
  • Begin readings in coursepack.  Note that the readings that accompany each activity listed below should be completed before the activity in question (e.g. the day/night before).

Friday, May 29

• Bus Tour of Urban Cairo
  • Leila Vignal and Eric Denis. 2006. “Cairo as Regional/Global Economic Capital.” In Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East. Edited by Diane Singerman and Paul Amar. AUC Press, 99-151.

• Evening at City Stars Mall
  • Mona Abaza. 2006. “Consumer Culture in Divided Cairo,” in The Changing Consumer Cultures of Modern Egypt: Cairo’s Urban Reshaping. AUC Press, 21-41.

Saturday, May 30

• Dashour and Saqqara Pyamids
  • L.L. Wynn. 2007. “Atlantis and Red Mercury.” In Pyramids and Nightclubs: A Travel Ethnography of Arab and Western Imaginations of Egypt. University of Texas Press, 82-126.

Sunday, May 31

• Giza Pyramids and the Sphynx
  • Petra Kuppinger. 2006. “Pyramids and Alleys: Global Dynamics and Local Strategies in Giza.” In Cairo Cosmopolitan, 313-344.

Monday, June 1

• Day-trip to Alexandria
  • Joel Beinin. 1994. “Egyptian Jewish Identities: Communitarianisms, Nationalisms, Nostalgias.” Historical Society of Jews from Egypt, 1-17.

• Visit to Wadi Natroun Monastery
  • Sohirin Solihin. 1991. “The Copts’ Language and Social Status.” In Copts and Muslims in Egypt: A Study on Harmony and Hostility. The Islamic Foundation, 7-22.

Tuesday, June 2

• Tour of Coptic Cairo and Coptic Museum
  • William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton. 2009. “The Rise and Expansion of Islam.” In A History of the Modern Middle East. 4^th edition. Westview Press, 5-18.
  • Sohirin Solihin. 1991. “Copt-Muslim Relations.” In Copts and Muslims in Egypt, 55-66.

Wednesday, June 3

• Tour of Islamic Cairo and Historic Mosques
  • Paula Sanders. 2008. “Constructing Medieval Cairo in the Nineteenth Century.” In Creating Medieval Cairo: Empire, Religion, and Architectural Preservation in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. AUC Press, 19-57.

• Lecture by Dr. Richard Gauvain, Professor of Comparative Religion at AUC.

Thursday, June 4

• Tour of Citadel and al-Azhar Mosque
  • L.L. Wynn. 2007. “Sex Orgies, A Marauding Prince, and Other Rumors about Gulf Tourism.” In Pyramids and Nightclubs, 127-168.

• Group discussion of political economy of tourism from 2-5 p.m.
  • Students will lead discussion of each reading and trip in pairs; article assignments will be given at random, so students should be prepared to discuss all of the readings.

• Journals due to Stacey and Vikash by 7 p.m.

Friday, June 5

• Individual conferences w/ Stacey and Vikash in afternoon

Saturday, June 6: Conference on “Regime, Opposition & Change”

• Lecture by David Faris
  • A. R. Norton. 2003. “The New Media, Civic Pluralism, and the Struggle for Political Reform.” In New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. 2^nd edition.  Edited by Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson. Indiana University Press, 19-32.
  • David Faris. 2008. “Revolution without Revolutionaries?  Network Theory, Facebook, and the Egyptian Blogosphere.” Arab Media and Society, September 2008, 1-11.

• Panel on Youth and Development
  • Reem Abu Zahra, Mohamed Abu Basha, Dalia Abulfotuh

Sunday, June 7: Conference on Civil Society, Gender, and Development

• Lecture on civil society, TBA
  • Vickie Langohr. 2005. “Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics?  Egypt and Other Liberalizing Regimes.” In Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance. Edited by Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist. Lynne Reinner Press, 193-217.

• Lecture by staff from the Population Council
  • Martha Brady, et al. 2007. “Providing New Opportunities to Adolescent Girls in Socially Conservative Settings: The Ishraq Program in Rural Upper Egypt.” The Population Council, 1-33.

Monday, June 8

• DDC, segue to rural readings
  • Catherine Miller. 2006. “Upper Egyptian Regionally-Based Communities in Cairo: Traditional or Modern Forms of Urbanization.” In Cairo Cosmopolitan, 375-397.

Tuesday, June 9

• DDC, Population and Pollution in Rural and Urban Settings
  • Sally Ethelston. 1994. “Gender, Population, Environment.” Middle East Report 190:  2-5.
  • Rachel Leven. 2007. “The Pharaoh’s Garbage: Growth and Change in Egypt’s Waste Management System.” NIMEP Insights, 55-70.

Wednesday, June 10

• DDC, Rural Development and Sustainability
  • Fouad Ibrahim and Barbara Ibrahim. 2003. “Egypt’s Urban Centres and Rural Settlements.” In Egypt: An Economic Geography. I.B. Tauris, 202-246.

Thursday, June 11

• Sustainability in Upper Egypt
  • Kent Weeks, Nigel Hetherington and Lucy Jones. “Valley of the Kings Site Management.” Theban Mapping Project, 27-51, 71-134. 

• Journals due to Stacey and Vikash at lunch

Friday, June 12

• On the Nile
  • Naguib Mahfouz. 1998. Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth. Translated by Tagreid Abu-Hassabo.  AUC Press, 1-86.

Saturday, June 13

• On the Nile
  • Naguib Mahfouz, Akhenaten, 87-172.

Sunday, June 14

• On the Nile
  • Final discussion: Representations of modernity, development, and progress in Mahfouz’s Akhenaten and al-Aswany’s Yacoubian Building.