Newswise — Ziad Fahmy, Cornell assistant professor of Near Eastern studies, has authored a book about how today’s Egyptians – by examining their nation’s history – can construct a modern national identity. The book, “Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture,” will be published in June 2011 by the Stanford University Press.
He is currently working on another book tentatively titled, “Listening to the Nation: Mass Culture and Identities in Interwar Egypt.”
"Ordinary Egyptians" shifts the typical focus of study away from the intellectual elite to understand the rapid politicization of the growing literate middle classes and brings the semi-literate and illiterate urban masses more fully into the historical narrative. It introduces the concept of “media-capitalism,” which expands the analysis of nationalism beyond print alone to incorporate audiovisual and performance media. It was through these various media that a collective camaraderie crossing class lines was formed and, as this book uncovers, an Egyptian national identity emerged.
Fahmy earned his doctorate in history from the University of Arizona. His interests include nationalism in the modern Middle East, colloquial Arabic mass-culture, and media and identity in Egypt and the Arab World. His dissertation “Popularizing Egyptian Nationalism,” was awarded the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award (2008).
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