Egyptian TV presenter, Ramy Radwan: I’ll quit if I’m ever forced to give up my principles!

By Farah Zalat and Hussein Shaker

(Cairo, Egypt) - Ramy Radwan, TV presenter of El Beit Beitak and alumnus of The American University in Cairo (AUC), spoke at AUC about the challenges facing young media professionals on Monday, November 2, 2015.

Radwan was the guest speaker and around 50 people attended, ranging from current AUC students and faculty to AUC alumni. It was planned by The AUC Alumni Association, which strives to connect the AUC alumni with one another as well as with the university.

After a brief introduction of Radwan by Dr. Naila Hamdy, associate professor and chair of the Journalism and Mass Communication Department (JRMC), he began his speech by clarifying how he was choosing to speak in Arabic because his respect for his native language has significantly grown lately. He jokingly, yet informatively, mentioned some of the challenges he has faced in the field.

He reassured the audience by using a personal example that making a mistake will not be as severe if you take the right measures to correct it and apologize. He also talked about how hard it is now to stay grounded ethically, stating how this problem has become increasingly evident in the Egyptian media.

In 2015, The Guardian published an article focusing on the increasing number of Egyptian media professionals who are becoming “mouthpieces for the government.” Which further proves Radwan’s point about the ethics in Egyptian media.

Rawan Lasheen, a JRMC graduate who attended the event; stated, “The government restrictions they put on the media. To say this and say that, don’t say this and don’t say that,” is the biggest problem she is personally facing in the field.

During the interview with Radwan after the event, he advised, “If you stick to your own beliefs, you will always gain more than just doing like a chameleon” to further emphasize the importance of principles in media.

Radwan is on El Beit Beitak on TEN TV at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. Tune in to watch him apply his personal ethics as a TV presenter.

Academic professor and author Fawaz Gerges gives a lecture at the American University in Cairo

 By Sama El Feky and Amina El Farnawany

Cairo-Egypt- Lebanese American academic and author with expertise on the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, Fawaz Gerges gave a public lecture on American foreign policy towards the Middle East change and continuity at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on Monday, March 30.  

Gerges is not just a professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Political Science, University of Oxford but he is also a holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies. Gerges, one of the top Middle East’s scholars, was the inaugural director of the LSE Middle East Centre from 2010 until 2013.

A former regular Middle East analyst for ABC News, Gerges, appeared on many famous shows including The Charlie Rose Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He wrote many books including The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda, Obama and the Middle East: The End of America's Moment?, and The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World.

During his lecture, Gerges focused mainly on the foreign policy of the United States. He demonstrated the point that the United States does not want to be involved with the Middle East. He used phrases like ‘uninterested’ to describe how Obama feels towards this region. However, he mentioned Obama’s interest in Iran due to the fact that it is the most important nuclear portfolio at the moment.

Gerges shared his opinion on the issue of the Middle East and the United States by saying that the Middle East should not wait for the United States’ intervention in matters. “It’s about time we take ownership and stand up for our region,” said Gerges. He later on shared his opinion on Egypt who he has been paying close attention to. “If you really want to know the situation in the Arab World, always look at Egypt. I teach my students, wherever Egypt goes, the Arab World follows,” said Gerges.

Gerges did not just cover the topic of the lecture but he also humbly answered questions from the AUC audience.

Psychologist and author Philip Zimbardo discusses Time Perspective at the American University in Cairo

By Norhan Tawil, Abdelhamid Mahmoud and Tamer Hegab

CAIRO- Internationally recognized scholar, psychologist and author, Philip Zimbardo, gave a lecture at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on Monday, March 9.

Zimbardo, 81, is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for the Stanford prison experiment, and since then, became an author of many books including The Lucifer Effect and The Time Paradox, which he discussed in his lecture under the title, “The Secret Power of Time to Influence our Decisions and Impact National Destinies."

The study of time perspective investigates how the human experience is dispersed over different categories and time frames of the past, present, and future. According to Zimbardo, “Your time perspective is the most important thing about you.” He explained how one’s time perspective is even more important than their personality and the way in which it shapes their behavior.

Zimbardo believes that time perspective is easy for anyone to understand. He made that clear by saying that “People from any education can understand time perspective.” Mariam El Sawy, a student of the SAPE Department at AUC believes that, “Understanding time perspective and psychology, makes you understand life, yourself and the people around you in a better way.”

An individual’s time perspective is so important it “can influence therapy,” according to Zimbardo. Dina Hassan, psychologist, and AUC alumni said, “I have a lot of patients with PTSD, and I think I should apply methods of time perspective to my therapy.”

The psychology unit at AUC, nominated Dr. Zimbardo as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for the SAPE Department. He communicated his work to his audience via intriguing and active presentation slides, that were full of bright images and funny videos. The 225-seat Mansour Lecture Hall at AUC was overpacked with excited students, faculty and attendees. 

This is the second lecture for Zimbardo at AUC . He gave a lecture on Sunday, March 8, at the Tahrir campus under the title "My Journey from Creating Evil to Inspiring Heroism." According to Hassan, Zimbardo has the ability to “take something that could otherwise be very bland and make it interesting.” 

Candygirl Author Gives Lecture on Imagination and The Reader

By Maghie Ghali, Amr Zaghloul and Menna Abdelbaky

Here are some selected audio highlights from the lecture:

A slide show featuring photos taken at the event:




Selected clips from the lecture:

Mohamed Tawfik, Egypt’s ambassador to the United States gave a lecture on Thursday Nov. 6 about his novel Candygirl at The American University in Cairo (AUC), to talk about imagination as part of the One Book, One Conversation, One community Reading Initiative.

           

Tawfik began by talking about his early experiences with Egyptian workers and how they would tell stories and enjoy new tales, “one day they discovered I had traveled out of Egypt and I would tell them stories about Paris; about Vienna.” Due to these experiences Tawfik saw the wonder of storytelling and it inspired him to tell his own, leading to him becoming an author who has written several books.

           

As the lecture progressed, Tawfik’s main topic was presented. He talked of the creative interactions between the author and the reader, believing that “the act of reading is essentially an act of creation.” What the reader imagines is almost more important than what the author envisions.

           

Furthermore, imagination and knowledge were two concepts that were also addressed by Tawfik. He stated that “regarding the element of imagination, a good novel for me is like a good symphony.” An important aspect is the way imagination is used, especially when talking about cultural stories. His novels are “set in densely populated, noisy Egyptian backgrounds” to give a multitude of sense to explore.

           

The section on knowledge explored the idea that “what is important is how humans interact and react” to things like books and media. Tawfik also covered issues of translating Arabic to English and the loss of meaning. However, he saw it as “a different way of looking at your own work.”

           

After the lecture, a Q&A session took place with Tawfik and the audience members. Rhetoric and Composition professor George Marquis was personally not a fan of the novel and felt that “inspiration is more than just a few words of wisdom.”

In relation to upcoming projects, Tawfik said he would be taking time to attend to his political duties for a few years to come.

Other events as part of the One Book, One Conversation, One community Reading Initiative will be taking place throughout the semester as well as another lecture with Tawfik on Wednesday Nov. 12.

A Storify to show the Tweets posted while covering the lecture:

Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, From Transit States to Destination Countries

By Doaa El Banna, Rawan Ibrahim and Yasmine Hassan

 

Cairo, Egypt - Kelsey P. Norman, a doctoral candidate at The University of California, Irvine, gave a seminar on migration and citizenship on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at The American University in Cairo, AUC, to discuss the treatment towards migrants and refugees in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey.

   The seminar, “Receivers By Default: Determinants of Host State Policy toward Migrants and Refugees in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey,” was hosted by the Center for Migration and Refugees Studies, at the AUC Tahrir campus in downtown Cairo.  

  "What I am presenting is a work in progress and not a conclusion," said Norman, as she explained that she is still in the middle of doing the field research for her Ph.D.

 In the seminar, Norman discussed the case studies of Egypt, Turkey and Morocco based on preliminary field studies conducted in the three countries, in addition to interviews with international migration organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), public servants from relevant ministries, international and local non-governmental organizations, and community based organizations. "I will be talking with individual migrants and refugees," Norman added.

   Norman stated that almost 50 percent of the world's migration today is from one developing country to another, even though most of the available literature focuses on the experience of the traditional settlement states in the West. She explained that "it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly and dangerous for regular migrants to successfully cross from North Africa into Europe."  

  Concerning the treatment of Syrian refugees in Egypt, Norman explained that some Syrians harbored an "anti-Morsy" sentiment after former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy was forced out of office by the Egyptian military on Sunday, June 30, 2013. Following that historical moment in Egyptian History, there appeared to be a media campaign defaming Syrian refugees; who were referred to as "terrorists," and were accused of allying with the Muslim Brotherhood and the ousted president.

“Syrians, who had been welcomed under Morsy and were able to access services that other refugees could not have, became very affiliated with Morsy and even rallied with him,” Norman explained.

 Norman ended the seminar by presenting some causal mechanisms which can determine the relationship between the host state and the migrants or refugees. These include political economy factors, new institutional factors, post national factors, cultural factors and domestic factors.

  “The lecture was good and I benefited a lot from it,” said Farida, a student at Ain Shams University. Farida stated that she wanted to know about migration and its levels nowadays, and said that she got what she wanted from the lecture.

Lecture by professor N'Dri Assié-Lumumba: "Higher Education And African Development Since The 1960s"

By Hannah Altmann, Haneen Abdel Maksoud and Passant El Gayar

Cairo, Egypt – Professor N’Dri Assié-Lumumba of the African and Diaspora education at Cornell University in New York, held a lecture titled “Higher Education And African Development Since The 1960s: Global-Local Dynamics” on Sunday, April 27^th in Mansour Hall at The American University in Cairo (AUC). 

The lecture focused on the development of higher education since the 1960s in Africa.

“Education is a universal need,” states Assié-Lumumba, as she starts off the lecture and continues to say, “it has a particular connection with human advancement and social progress.”

When speaking of education, we have to look at the historical context. As the African-American historian, John Henrik Clarke had once said “the role of history is to tell a people what they have been and where they have been, what they are and where they are.”

After the creation of UNESCO in 1948, education was considered a human right; it gave the right for everybody to receive education and gave the states the responsibility to provide a framework for education (Assié-Lumumba). Prior to the creation of UNESCO, parts of Africa were still under colonial rule. Some countries didn’t receive education by their colonizers and those who did, by law had a limited amount of years of education they couldn’t exceed. However, Africans were eager to have access to education. The United Nations (UN) came to have similar views as them and the 1960’s was declared year of educational of development. Nevertheless, some African countries were still under colonial influence after their independence.

The lecturer continued to say that contrary to the UN’s belief, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided that higher education was not necessary in Africa, after the 1970s oil crisis. It was consuming too much money, and was not operating, as it should, according to the standards of the IMF and the World Bank. Therefore they refused to further invest in higher education in Africa and shifted their attention to basic education.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aim to improve Africa by 2015. These goals include eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development. Assié-Lumumba points out that: ” if you want to succeed, you can’t miss out on any of these eight points” because as the Human Capital Theory suggests, there is a linear and positive correlation between education and development. An attendee of the lecture by the name of Ahmed Alaa said that "I found the lecture interesting because it made me understand why Africa is so behind in terms of education and development."

"Basic Needs: Palestine Capitalists and the British Rule" by Sherene Seikaly

By: Rawan Lasheen, Eshraka Sumrain and Nourhan Rateb

Cairo, Egypt – On Wednesday, April 9, Sherene Seikaly, assistant professor of history and director of the Middle East Studies Center, gave a lecture critiquing the Palestinian economists and the Arab liberal project during the British colonial rule. Seikaly expressed at the start of the lecture that the topic lies at the heart of her new book, “Bare Needs: Palestinian Capitalism and British Colonial Rule.”  

The lecture took place at the Prince AlWaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall at The American University in Cairo, and generally explores how Palestinian capitalists and British Colonial officers used the economy in the 1930s and 1940s to shape notions of territory and nationalism in Palestine.

Seikaly started by shedding light on the Balfour Declaration, which she described as having “committed the British Government to fulfilling…to facilitating a Jewish national home in Palestine.” Seikaly expressed that it was odd how European Jews, who began settling in Palestine in the 1930s, are almost completely nonexistent in the Palestinian capitalist narratives. 

Her take on this narrative dissonance is that Palestinians at the time were occupied in separating the economy from the political arena by “trying to carve out the economy as a discrete sphere.” Herein lies Seikaly’s critique of the Palestinian Capitalists of the late 19^th century. Seikaly went on to clarify that, ultimately in the 1940s, it became clear to them that this separation was virtually impossible. 

At the end of the lecture, Seikaly left 15 minutes to open the floor to questions. One attendee’s question appropriately served as a conclusion to the lecture. She asked whether it was at all possible to separate the economy from politics, referring to the Palestinian capitalist’s intent to do so during the 1930s. Seikaly argued that they tried to read politics ‘between the lines’ as the politics present at the time was one that embraced capitalism. She put forth an example where the Palestinian capitalists would say that they’d refuse to talk about the legislative council, for example, as they would leave that issue to the “men of politics.” However what they would talk about is how this legislative council would be good for the economy.