Changing Egyptian Textbooks over time: Authors, Bureaucracy and Politics

The 7th session of the seminar series 'Exploring Egypt: Histories and Historiographies', a joint initiative of the Ifao & the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK) organized by Fatma Keshk & Malak Labib, will be hosted by the Ifao. It is open to the public in the limit of available places and live online through the Ifao youtube channel.

This seminar will tackle the evolution of Egyptian history textbooks from the 1950s to the late 1970s. Based on an article co-authored with Ehaab Abdou, the talk will discuss how textbooks were authored, changed over time and the ways in which content was recycled, edited and revised amidst social and political change in Egypt.

Farida Makkar holds a DPhil in History from St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Her research explores manifestations of progressive pre-university education in Egypt between 1922 and 1956. It occupies a hybrid position between intellectual and social history as it traces the making of a modern teaching profession in Egypt via an exploration of the profession’s relationship to progressive pedagogy.