The Turn of Time: “Colonising Egypt” and the Social and Cultural Changes it Imposed

In 1882, Egypt fell to British military occupation, only to regain its independence in 1954. This 72 year occupation coronated a colonization process which predated the British invasion and was not put to an end by the withdrawal of British troops.

In this course we explore the social and cultural colonial changes that accompanied, predated, and outlasted the British occupation. This exploration will proceed through works of literature, newspaper clippings, and academic texts. Our discussion will start with and focus on Muhammad al-Muwaylihi’s brilliant narrative text Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham, written at the onset of the British occupation, tracing the changes that accompanied it, and sometimes credited for being the first Arabic novel. This course will use Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham as an opportunity to revisit cultural and social histories through a close reading of an exceptional work of literature.

Throughout the course we will be reading al-Muwaylihi’s text alongside a number of academic texts tracing the colonial changes Egypt went through; most notably Timothy Mitchell’s Colonising Egypt which was in many ways inspired by Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham. As al-Muwaylihi’s text will provide the backbone of our conversation, the course is designed so as to let the discussion take us to other texts and other themes that are related to the colonial transformations Egypt witnessed. The course is tentatively designed to proceed along 5 axes: colonial temporality, the colonization of space, the colonization of language, the colonial gaze, and the colonization of marriage and the family.

As we will be visiting many Arabic-language works in the original, knowledge of Arabic is pre-required for attending this course. In addition, some of the academic texts we are reading are only available in English and we expect the class discussion to proceed in both Arabic and English.