IFAO

The 7^th 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. 

Exploring Egypt Seminar: Histories and Historiographies

A joint collaboration between the Ifao (Institut français d’archéologie orientale) & the DAIK (German Archaeological Institute in Cairo), joined in 2025 by the CAI (Centro Archeologico Italiano), PCMA (Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology Cairo) & NVIC (Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo).

This seminar series aims, broadly speaking, to discuss different aspects related to the production of historical knowledge on Egypt. Speakers are invited to reflect on the different ways of writing, narrating and thinking about Egypt’s history at different periods, as well as on the actors, contexts, and power relations involved in the production of historical narratives. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the seminar series seeks to bring into conversation fields which have traditionally been examined separately, such as the history of Egyptology, the study of modern Egyptian historiography, and the history of heritage and preservation.

In addition, while the seminar series seeks to shed a critical light on the formation of specific disciplinary fields and traditions, it also moves beyond an exclusive focus on professional history writing, in order to explore the various institutions, genres, and channels, through which historical narratives have been produced and disseminated.  Among the themes that will be discussed, for instance, are the different “histories” of Egyptology, archaeology or Arabic and Islamic studies, academic versus “popular” representations of history, and heritage preservation as a site of production of historical narratives.

Exploring Egypt: Histories and Historiographies Seminar is organised by Fatma Keshk, Postdoctoral fellow at DAIK & Ifao and Malak Labib, scientific member of the Ifao.