Long before social media platforms entered our daily lives, audiocassette technology decentralized state-controlled Egyptian media and empowered countless people to create culture, circulate information, and challenge ruling regimes. What might the social life of a seemingly obsolete technology teach us about a now omnipotent one? And how might popular culture not only complement what we already know about the past but radically alter our understanding of it?
In this talk, we will approach Egypt as a mixtape where two voices take center stage. First, we will examine Egypt’s “vulgar soundscape” and a pioneer of sha’bi music, Ahmad Adawiya, who was at the center of debates on the “death of taste” at a time when the state strove to control the shape Egyptian culture assumed. Next, we will turn to Shaykh Imam, a blind performer and political dissident whose compositions traveled near and far on non-commercial cassettes that undermined the tales told by political authorities. In placing Adawiya and Imam into conversation with one another, we will elucidate the extraordinary impact of an ordinary technology and dive into the politics of popular culture.
• About the speaker •
Andrew Simon is a historian of media, popular culture, and the modern Middle East. He was a fellow at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in downtown Cairo during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and is currently serving as Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College and the modern history book review editor for the International Journal of Middle East Studies. His first book, Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt, was published by Stanford University Press and an Arabic translation of the book is forthcoming with Dar El Shorouk later this year. Andrew is currently writing a biography of Shaykh Imam and making his private collection of cassettes public in a digital archive where anyone will be able to access, explore, and enjoy Egypt’s acoustic culture.
This lecture will not be livestreamed. We open our doors at 5:30 and close them at 6:15 or earlier in case the lecture room has reached full capacity.
