Cairo in my lungs
Back to Cairo now and the ‘Research Skills for Egyptology’ workshops are well underway. Yesterday I had a small class of third year undergraduate students from Cairo University (pictured above) who are studying for their Egyptian history and archaeology degrees in English (as opposed to Arabic). They belong to less than 5% of the entire cohort of 4000 + students at undergraduate and postgraduate level pursuing their studies in English at the Faculty. I’ll be teaching the Masters group tomorrow.
While the research workshops are running, I’m also busy preparing a museology lecture I’m due to deliver later this month to ICOM-Egypt, followed by students in the Museum Studies program at the University of Helwan (see draft flyer above). About two weeks ago I had the privilege to meet with Dr Ossama Abdel Meguid (museum consultant, lecturer and Vice President of ICOM-Arab) and Dr Mohamed Gamal (lecturer and curator at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) about the current state of museums in Egypt. This was a fabulously insightful discussion for me and I was most interested to hear that two of the key areas they're seeking international assistance with, is: (1) museum branding, marketing and communication and, (2) ways of engaging children and family audiences. Although these aren’t directly related to my areas of expertise, I was certainly able to draw on a lot of relevant examples from exhibitions I’ve worked on. They were also extremely fascinated to hear about the recent re-branding of the museum I work at (the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, Australia), as well as the Government’s proposal to relocate us from Sydney’s CBD to a satellite city about 25km west (you can read more about this here and here). Given all this, I’m now looking to present on ‘Museums in Australia: a behind-the-scenes insight into current issues and practices’, which I’m really looking forward to.
In other news, I feel like I’ve breathed in the whole of Cairo. Most days, Cairo is enveloped by smog (you can get a sense of this from the photo above). This isn’t anything new, and it’s always something I find myself contending with, but it can be particularly unpleasant when you’re trying to lecture for 2-hours straight. So, I’m currently self-medicating on some magical Parisian throat lozenges and powdered drink (thank you my dear French friend!), as well as embracing the facial scarf wrap. Actually, the picture above has another story to it too. This is the ridiculously long queue we found ourselves in on Saturday for the Cairo International Book Fair. We had no idea what to expect, especially with queues like that! Was their a fun park inside? Free food? A famous author doing book signings? Well, it was kind of all that - and more! There were also puppet shows, clowns, musical entertainment, lots of food trucks, people having picnics on the ‘green’, lectures, live television interviews and so on. Actually, if you’re reading this, and happen to be in Cairo, it is well-worth going along to. Diwan and AUC Press were selling some great books at really low prices. My steal for the day was an anthology of women travellers in Egypt at only 10LE (that’s less than $2 AU). I’ve also turned my bedtime reading to a bit of Nietzche. Somehow, Cairo is just the right place for him.