Group items tagged

No one knows how Giulio Regeni was murdered, or by whom. But from the moment the body of the 28-year-old Italian graduate student was found on the side of the road in a Cairo suburb, suspicion has fallen on Egypt's security services. The Middle East Studies Association has now issued a security alert for study and research in Egypt.

This article follows a cartoonist from Al-Masry Al-Youm a private newspaper in Egypt 

This article discusses the way the revolutionary uprisings from January 25th have shaped the art community. It focuses not just on street art (which is used as an act of defiance), but also on film, literature (mainly non-fiction works, but poetry as well). Lindsey discusses how the uprisings have shaped all of the art forms that "demonstrate a support for the uprising through cultural activism."

Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian jihadist group released a video Sunday showing the execution of four men, including three being beheaded, accused of spying for the army and for Israel's Mossad intelligence service. It is the second time such gruesome footage has been released by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), the deadliest militant group based in Egypt's insurgency-hit Sinai region.

This artifact is a reading of Ahmed Fouad Negm's poem, "Who Are They and Who Are We?" This poem was written in light of the Egyptian revolution and is used to compare and contrast the lives of the ruling class with the working class citizens in order to inspire a sense of hope that the working class can over throw the ruling class.

I'm proud to say I got to spend an evening with Negm and a group of mutual friends in Cairo before he passed away. He told legendary jokes in spontaneous verse.

This article is from the point of view of an anthropologist who was brought in as a cultural consultant to mediate an issue of "watsa" for a corporation in the Middle East. The company prides itself on its lack of internal corruption, and in turn hired a man named Girgis who grew up in the Middle East but lived and received an education in the US. In Girgis's first year he hired one of his cousins, which the supervisors saw as corrupt hiring practice. The author, and hired consultant, explained to the company supervisors that watsa was an "investment and return" framework in Arab culture, and that there are economic parallels between Arab families and businesses, families existing as economic units. Girgis conveyed that anywhere else in the world he would run the office by the book, but in the Arab world he must also adhere to social norms. The result of watsa through Arab eyes leads to greater loyalty, and less likelihood for deception and theft. The article basically introduces the idea that while in the Western world this may be seen as corruption, it is an embedded part of culture in the Middle East. 

This article focuses on the graffiti on the streets of Cairo and how the graffiti has started to stand for more than just an expression of tagging, but rather art and a way of the revolution. The artists use graffiti as a way to communicate to others that they are seeing the injustices that are going on. This street art also binds together the artists of this city and their ideologies.

In this article, the Smithsonian presents Egypt's murals more than just art but as a part of the revolution.

This article was a great introductory to what graffiti art has become in Egypt, what it stands for and the meaning behind the paint. It explains that around 2011 individual people and other artistic groups began documenting the wrong doings, brutality and cruelty of the Egyptian regime. The author interviewed artist Ahmed Naguib, and he said, " people singing revolutionary slogans come and go, but the graffiti remains and keeps our spirits alive."

This is Keizers home page, which included a lot of photos of his work, and more specific things like his inspiration, influences, media and design philosophy. I found it interesting that his design philosophy was, "visual imagery that is thought provoking,satire,awakening,open ended with an emphasis on universal threads and concepts that we share collectively as a race". Insinuating more emphasis on race than a country as a whole.

The dreams, hopes and anger of the Egyptian uprising after 2011 found their most direct and emotional expression through graffiti art, a Swedish journalist based in Cairo told a Duke audience Wednesday.

This was is an article that describes some of the most important graffiti art in great detail, along with some inside news. Ms. Grondahl talks about the mural that was made after the soccer massacre in Port Said, as well as a specific piece of art that was altered by some pro-military artists who erased the original message, although it was repainted over again.

This short article paints a picture of the violent crimes against women that are taken place at Al-Azhar University. Aisha Al-Shatar who is the daughter of the Muslim Brotherhood's vice-chairman, has publicly called upon the media to display the lynching of female students. 

His face is on posters, shirts, cupcakes and now campaign banners and billboards across the country. The image of Egypt's next likely president, ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was iconized well before he declared his candidacy by propagandists, opportunists and supporters soon after he led the military ouster of President Mohammed Morsi last summer amid the nationalist fervor sweeping the country.