The Code of Karam: How Literature Shapes Post-Revolutionary Social Spaces in Cairo

In this talk, I will present my upcoming book project on the role of literary practices in recreating spaces of sociability and solidarity in post-revolutionary Cairo. Over the past two decades, Egypt’s literary worlds have been reconfigured by two major phenomena. First, the digital disruption of publishing since the mid-2000s has expanded access to literary authorship, allowing many new writers to enter the market.

Stranger Visions: Ghuraba’ and Egypt’s Ideological Crisis

My paper examines a moment of ideological crisis in modern Egyptian history, refracted through the film Ghuraba’(strangers, directed by Sa‘d ‘Arafa and written by ‘Arafa and Ra’fat al-Mihi). The film was screened in 1973, at a postcolonial inflection point in which Marxism, existentialism and an extreme formulation of Islamism were all depicted as exhausted and inadequate. Ghuraba’ gropes toward, but stops short of fully articulating, an Islamic moral engagement with secular society and ideology.

Seeds in the Rubble: Cultural Vitality in the Arab World

The past century has been a time of great turmoil in much of the world. Europe, perhaps, bore the brunt of this turmoil, with millions killed and entire cities, such as Rotterdam, Dresden, and Warsaw largely reduced to rubble along with their museums, and cultural institutions. The Arab World has also suffered its share of conflicts, compounding the adverse impact of colonialism on everyday life and culture.

Food and Language: Rhetorical-Cultural Excavations in Arab Heritage / الطعام والكلام: حفريات بلاغية ثقافية في التراث العربي

Winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2025 for Literary and Art Criticism, Dr Said Laouadi, will be in conversation with Professor Michael Willis and Professor Eugene Rogan on his book 'الطعام والكلام: حفريات بلاغية ثقافية في التراث العربي' / 'Food and Language: Cultural Excavations in Arab Heritage’ (2023).

Translation from Arabic to English will be provided by Taj Kandoura.

About the book:

Safe Corridor

About the book:
‘Safe Corridor’ is a bold, unforgettable novel of war, imagination, and survival. Thirteen-year-old Kamiran is fleeing the collapse of Syria when his body begins to harden—literally—turning to chalk. As his transformation unfolds, he pours his memories, secrets, and darkly funny confessions into a piece of chalk he stole at school. Through the eyes of this precocious, resilient boy, Safe Corridor explores what it means to survive the unthinkable—with tenderness, fury, and imagination.

Sacred Places Tell Tales: Jewish Life and Heritage in Modern Cairo

'Sacred Places Tell Tales' explores the history of Egyptian Jewry through the lens of Cairo’s synagogues, treating them as “living archives” of Jewish life from 1875 to the present. Examining their architecture, locations, and social functions reveals the heterogeneity of Cairo’s Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Karaite communities and the diverse ways modern Jewish identities were formed. The talk also considers contemporary efforts to preserve Jewish heritage—synagogues, cemeteries, and cultural memory—within Egypt’s shifting political and social landscape.

Skarlet Olivera

I am an MPhil student in Politics (Comparative Government) at the Department of Politics and International Relations. My primary research areas are broadly embedded in the comparative political economy of institutions and the political economy of development. These include state capacity, political institutions, inequality, and state-building in Latin America and Africa. I also work with mixed methods techniques, combining time series, case studies, and game theory.

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