Ziad Fahmy - Listening to the Past: Street Hawkers and Cairo’s Lost Sounds

In "Listening to the Past,” Ziad Fahmy examines everyday life in Egypt using sound and the politics of sound as one of the key tools for uncovering the changes that went on in the Egyptian urban streets during the rapidly shifting first half of the twentieth century.

By listening-in to the changes materializing in the Egyptian streets, we can get a lot closer to the embodied mundane realities of everyday pedestrians, street peddlers, and commuters. This allows for a more micro-historical examination of everyday people’s interactions with each other and helps us evaluate the impact of the various street-level technological and infrastructural manifestations of modern Egyptian street-life.

Ziad Fahmy is a Professor of Modern Middle East History at Cornell University’s department of Near Eastern Studies. Professor Fahmy is the author of Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2020). Street Sounds was a co-winner of the Urban History Association's 2021 Award for Best Book in Non-North American Urban History. He also wrote Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture (Stanford University Press, 2011), and is currently writing his third book, tentatively titled, Broadcasting Identity: Radio and the Making of Modern Egypt, 1925-1952.

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The lecture starts at 6 pm. We work on a first-come, first-served basis as the number of seats is limited. We open our doors at 5:30 and close them at 6:15 or earlier when the lecture room reaches its full capacity.

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