The American University in Cairo (AUC), Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations (ARIC)

AUC Rare Books and Special Collections Library (RBSCL)

Women and Memory Forum (WMF)
 

Women’s Private Archives in Egypt: Revisiting the Canon

Call for Papers

April 6-7, 2025

This workshop brings together scholars working on women’s archives in Egypt. Over the past two decades, the Women and Memory Forum has brought together private papers belonging to feminist activists and politically/professionally active women (including Wedad Mitri and Lili Doss), in addition to oral history interviews with them. The American University in Cairo’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library holds the private papers of several feminist figures (including Huda Sha‘rawi and Doria Shafiq), in addition to women periodicals and other material. Despite their importance, and the rich collections of documents they hold, including letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, speech drafts and photographs, these archival repositories have until now been understudied.

This workshop encourages a closer study of these private papers, including their literary, socio-linguistic, historical and feminist dimensions. It aims at questioning the legacy of canonical figures and unearthing overshadowed figures, hence opening fresh discussions about the histories of Egyptian, Arab and international feminist movements in the first half of the twentieth century. It further contributes to gender and memory studies.

Themes that can be addressed during the workshop include (but are not restricted to):

– Literary aspects (including autobiographical fragments, epistolary narratives and literary texts)

– Overshadowed feminist figures

– Feminist networking in support of the Palestinian nationalist movement

– Francophone networks in Egypt

– Family histories and filial relationships

– Social and gender norms, feminism and the unspoken

– Socio-linguistic study of the correspondences (written in Arabic, French and English)

– History of the international feminist movement in the first half of the twentieth century

– Archival practices among the elite

– Class privilege and elite networks in and outside Egypt

– Ethics of working in the archive

Languages of the workshop: Arabic and English

Please submit an abstract (300 words) and a short bio (150 words) by November 15 to womenarchives@wmf.org.eg

We will get back to you by December 1^st, 2024.

The workshop will be held in Cairo on April 6, 2025, at AUC’s RBSCL,
and on April 7, 2025, at WMF