Digital Commons Network^™

Framing The Fight: Revolutionary Feelings In Virtual Communities, James Reilly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study considers how social media impacts emotional processing, and ultimately social movement development. Through a multidisciplinary lens, I explore how social media fits within larger media ecologies, particularly during times of social upheaval and collective action. Grounded in an examination of organizational efforts in advance of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, I look at how communication patterns create common emotional cues that help form the movement. Considering framing, emotional habitus, and subjective agency within digital spaces, I demonstrate how social media has emerged as an articulating space for social movements to develop and plan before drawing wider, offline populations to …

Scattered Fragments: Art, Architecture, And Archives In Revolutionary Urban Cairo, Mounira M. Makar

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how revolutions impact urban Cairo and its communities, specifically within artistic, architectural and archival practice while acknowledging the central role of public spaces in giving way to such revolutionary practices. Fundamentally, this paper highlights the foundational nature of such practices in developing urban communities.

A Female Pharaoh And The Emperor’S Wife: Hatshepsut, Julia Domna, And Female Authority In Antiquity, Gabriella E. Ramalho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes how historical notions of masculinity and femininity shaped perceptions of power between the Egyptian female pharaoh Hatshepsut and Roman empress Julia Domna. Both rulers carefully created visual narratives of masculinity and femininity to leverage respect from their citizens, in accordance with what was contextually appropriate for their respective societies.

It will be shown that there are blatant disconnects between how others perceived them and how they wished to be portrayed. Hatshepsut, a rare female pharaoh, depicted herself in the regalia of a male king with a false ceremonial beard, scepters and crowns. Domna was described as the …

“The People Are Tired, And Just Want To Have Fun”: Mahraganat Music And The Struggle For Sonic Presence In Post-2013 Egypt, Mohammed Elfeky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon Asef Bayat’s notion of the “unintelligibility” of Egypt’s subaltern politics, this thesis investigates how mahraganat music is rendered “unintelligible/nonsense” by influential Egyptian cultural figures and is targeted for censorship. Mahraganat is a musical artform that arose from the lower-working classes neighborhoods in Egypt to become a dominant genre in the country. In 2020, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate, headed by Hany Shakir, banned mahraganat artists from performing officially in Egypt. Before and after the ban, state media debated the genre's status; its detractors framed the music as nonsensical, “absurd”, “meaningless”, “vulgar”, and a “low-brow” dilution of Egyptian cultural production …

The Impact Of The International Monetary Fund’S 2016 – 2019 Loan To Egypt On The Country’S Development, Anasimon Takla

Dissertations and Theses

The primary objective of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is growth. The organization and its programs can enable the development of nations across the globe and stimulate growth. However, due to weaknesses in its system with conditions that are offered as blanket solutions for unique problems as well as unequal bargaining terms, the IMF can exacerbate the situation in nations that are already suffering with crises. Following years of unrest after the Arab Spring, Egypt finds itself in an unwieldly position having both vowed to increasing its development as well as introduced major reforms based on IMF recommendations in order …

Could Reducing Compulsory Years Of Schooling In A Developing Country Be Beneficial?, Dina Al Ajmi

Theses and Dissertations

Towards the end of the 1980s Egypt introduced an educational policy aimed at reducing the years of compulsory primary schooling from six years to five years. This reduced the overall compulsory years of schooling from nine years to eight years. This paper will examine the educational and labor outcomes of this policy change differentiated by urban and rural areas using the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) 2006 and 2012 rounds. Regressions estimated in this paper differentiated between the urban and rural populations. The results suggested that the effect on the rural community was much larger than the effect on …

The Willfulness Of A Missing Frame: Ahmed Zaki And The Politics Of Visual Resistance, Miriam M. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) is one of Egyptian cinema’s most prominent leading actors, with work spanning three decades of critical films that informed a generation’s visual register of masculinity. However, the beginnings of his career were marked by public skepticism around his place as a leading actor due to him being “too dark” and “too poor”; as his career continued to flourish, those very markings of racing and classing Zaki because a foundation for increasingly stamping his public image with the “authenticity” of an Egyptian citizen. At a particularly neoliberal moment in the Egyptian economy, that of the early 80s, new …

"Alienation In The Egyptian Novel Under Nasser: A Study Of Naguib Mahfouz’S The Beggar And Son’Allah Ibrahim’S That Smell.", Zeina Sabry

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Religion Is Not The Answer: How To Turn Restlessness Into Meaningful Change - The Egyptian Conundrum, Alain C. Seckler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The situation in Egypt and elsewhere in parts of the Arab world is to some extent reminiscent of the situation that prevailed before 1914 in Europe, where a motley array of unharnessed popular micronationalisms (today, instrumentalized religious fervor) combined with big power politics and interests and led to the cataclysm of war. With regard to Egypt, there is also a huge generational gap, with 2/3 of Egypt's population below the age of 35 years. The so-called "solutions" of the past, whether religious or secular, will no longer work if the voice of the young people is not heard by their …

Brothers In Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, And The Mobilization Of The Early Muslim Brotherhood, Ian Henry Vandermeulen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In light of Randy Martin's proposal to use dance as an analytic tool for understanding social movements, this article seeks to reconstruct the early mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "bodies in motion." Through a re-examination of both primary and secondary source material, this study highlights the ways in which founder Hasan al-Banna appropriated both Islamic and colonial choreographic logics into the Muslim Brotherhood's pious training regimen, scouting programs, political expression, and social welfare projects. I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood was mobilized through al-Banna's revival of traditional Islamic practices concerning the body, reconfigured for the goal not of otherworldly …

Not By Accident: How Egyptian Civil Society Successfully Launched A Revolution, Helen-Margaret Nasser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the role of civil society in Egypt and argues that it was central to the success of the 2011 revolution that ended in the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. I will discuss the development of civil society under Mubarak and demonstrate its strength. In understanding civil society in Egypt, this thesis will discuss the strengths of groups such as associations, Islamist movements, women's groups, labor activism, and youth movements. I also demonstrate that it is important to understand the precedents established that shaped the state's stance towards civil society. As such, this thesis will also discuss the …

An Examination Of Western Representation Of The Muslim Brotherhood Through Various Media Outlets, Popular Literature And How Has Recent History And Outside Influences Affected The Viewpoint Presented To The Public?, Lynn Andrew Perkins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In depth study of Western media's coverage of the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Not only using key events between the West/ United States and the Middle East over the last 40 years to show how current events are reported but also investigating where and how the media receives their information to report. The outside and internal influences put upon western media are also under investigation in this paper and how those influences insure that their own interests supersede that of complete and accurate reporting …