IFAO

The 17^th session of the seminar series 'Exploring Egypt: Histories and Historiographies', a joint initiative of the Ifao, DAIK, CAI, PCMA, NVIC, & ARCE , will be hosted at the Ifao, Mounira. This session features Wafaa Abdelaziz and Juan Carlod Lucero, and it is entitled "Filling the Gap: Footnotes of Modern Alexandria". The lecture is open to the public in the limit of available places.

ABSTRACT

From the cotton boom and the British bombardment to two revolutions and two World Wars, major events shaped the lives of Alexandrians and the city’s visual identity between the 1860s and the 1960s. This period was followed by a gap in the modern history of Alexandria, once Egypt’s capital and its main coastal city.

This talk explores the contexts that formed the Alexandria we experience today. It also examines how footnotes, a cultural project based in the city, helps to fill gaps in Alexandria’s historical narrative by bringing overlooked stories back into public discussion through active engagement with the city’s buildings and streets.

Wafaa Abdelaziz An Alexandrian tour guide with a background in heritage and Egyptology. Her studies and work at the Library of Alexandria helped her recognize the inseparable ties between past, present, and future, and she loves sharing them with others. That is why she brought together her passion for heritage and storytelling to co–found footnotes.   Juan Carlos Lucero A Guatemalan cultural mediator with over 10 years of experience working with the United Nations worldwide. He originally came to Alexandria to fulfill a childhood dream of living in the city where many of his favorite philosophers once lived. He fell in love with the city and its layered history, and went on to co–found footnotes, a cultural project based in Alexandria.

 

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) and ARCE (American Research Center in Egypt).

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.