American University in Cairo

This lecture course provides a primer in visual literacy across media, introducing key terms and methods for critically reading the visual world including iconology, formal analysis, art history, ideological analysis, and semiotics. Students gain fluency in understanding how images work in cultural context to communicate meaning, to express a sense of self, to convey pleasure, to sell things, and to distribute power. Questions of the effect of specific visual technologies are also engaged, particularly their impact on perception and conduct. Examples are drawn from fine arts, advertising, film, popular culture, and new media. This is an introductory course that fosters creative, conceptual, analytical and critical thinking with regards to visual communication. The course provides the primary references of the visual arts and graphic design fields as well as its corresponding terminology. It also introduces different creative practices and to contextual dynamics that have shaped the history of visual media from prehistoric times to the present day. Finally, the course gives a glimpse into contemporary theoretical approaches that address issues such as sustainability, social impact, diversity, inclusion and heritage. How do images convey meaning? How can they mislead us? What is the difference between seeing and looking? In other words, does sight guarantee insight? This course delves deep into visual strategies, contexts of viewership, and the ways in which to critically navigate the world around us with the tools.

This course covers major theoretical perspectives in studying social problems. It includes systematic examination of the salient stresses and strains in Egyptian, Arab, and Middle Eastern societies. The course also discusses selected concrete problems, such as population, bureaucracy, youth unrest, deviance, drugs, prostitution.

The class focuses on learning how to look at and to analyze Egyptian art and to place it in its historical, artistic, and cultural context. It focuses on Egyptian art from the end of the Middle Kingdom into the Ptolemaic Period (a review of earlier periods is provided) and includes: modes of representation, role of Egyptian art, reliefs, statuary, architecture, and minor arts, illustrated with images. Elements of Egyptian art that have influenced modern art are also discussed. This course involves a certain amount of memorization, which improves students’ memory capacity, so that each student has a "database" of images and can use it to situate monuments and artifacts within Egyptian history, as well as to develop visual awareness and memory. There is a focus on oral and written communication. Field trips include the Cairo Museum and pyramid sites such as Sakkara and Dahshur.

This course covers the history of Egypt from the Middle Kingdom to the end of Pharaonic history. The course focuses on the "official" history of Egypt rather than the cultural/social history that is covered in a separate course. The scope of "official" history includes: the different rulers of Egypt and their contributions to the state in terms of buildings, religious changes and foreign policy, the economy, social organization, and Egypt’s foreign relations. Literary sources are augmented by archaeological evidence. Field trips to archaeological sites are an important component of the course.

The general idea of “narrating” is to detect “history” through various expressions by those who lived it, interacted with it, and “narrated” it through various vehicles: literature, music, poetry, the cinema, visual arts, photography, chronicles and memoirs, customs and habits, etc. “History” here is traced not as a narrative of the grand struggle for political power, or a succession of past events within a singular or mainstream narrative of it that suppresses variations in perspectives, but as a set of experienced realities and processes that conditioned “LIFE”--viz. the plurality of different lives--in different ways and at different times. Documentaries, films, literature, music, live narratives, historical anecdotes, etc. are all seen as possible forms of narratives. It is through the freely-flowing combination of all of those and other sources that the course exposes an assortment of voices, perspectives, and representations: by travelers, novelists, poets and colloquial poets, singers and composers, film directors, journalists, historians, statesmen and politicians, and of “ordinary people” as well as activists. All of these sources define the broad framework of the seminar and the potential opportunities it opens up. This course is run in the spirit of a Cultural Salon: in a free-flow style of discussion, seeking contribution from all of its participants, in the form each finds most conducive to expressing themselves, while all get engaged in a collective exploration, and are all bound by a collective commitment and understanding rather than a preconceived agenda or menu of requirements.
 

This is part two of a two-semester sequence covering elementary Egyptian colloquial Arabic. This course introduces the spoken Arabic of Cairo (Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, ECA). It concentrates on enabling students to communicate effectively in daily life using high-frequency vocabulary, basic sentence patterns, and pronunciation-focused practice. The course emphasizes listening and speaking skills, supported by guided reading and writing tasks. Intercultural learning is integrated throughout the course through guided noticing, comparison, and reflection. Students complete structured mini-tasks that connect classroom language to real-life interaction in Cairo and document what they observe, hear, and say in everyday contexts. 
 

This course focuses on the practicalities of acquiring, processing, and curating archives as well as issues concerning access and research. It also introduces the different archival material available that is relevant to the study of Egyptology and its history. In addition to readings on the history of archives, their significance, and best practice, the course provides hands-on experience with the Selim Hassan archives from his excavation at Giza housed in the American University in Cairo’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library. Students catalogue the material (both photographic and textual), learn about conservation, and documentation (scanning and photography), and the upkeep and organization of digital archives. They then also work on the material (the extent depends on time permitting) to see what was published and what was not, and learn how to categorize the material for future use. In addition to the practical work, there are a series of assignments associated with archives. Thus, this course not only expose students to archival work and best practices, but also archival research and its role in publications. Field trips to Giza to visit the areas of Hassan’s excavations as well as to the archives of other archaeological institutes form part of the course, as well as guest lectures by archivists and scholars who use archives to further archaeological work.