Overview
Ziad Fahmy is a Professor of Modern Middle East History at the department of Near Eastern studies. Professor Fahmy received his History Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Arizona, where his dissertation “Popularizing Egyptian Nationalism” was awarded the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award (2008) from the Middle East Studies Association.
He is the author of Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2020), which won the Urban History Association's 2021 award for Best Book in Non-North American Urban History. Professor Fahmy also wrote Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture (Stanford University Press, 2011).
He is currently writing his third book, tentatively titled, Broadcasting Identity: Radio and the Making of Modern Egypt, 1928-1952. His articles have appeared in Comparative Studies in Society and History, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, History Compass, and in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. His research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Research Center in Egypt.
Courses Taught
- Women in the Modern Middle East
- Theory and Method in Near Eastern Studies
- History of Modern Egypt
- History of the Modern Middle East
- Contesting Egyptian Identities
- Nationalism(s) & Nation-States in the Arab World
Research Focus
- Nationalism and state formation in the nineteenth and twentieth century Middle East
- Trans-nationalism and the fluidity of identity in the nineteenth century Mediterranean World
- Historical sounds and soundscapes
- Media Studies and the history of early radio
Publications
Books
- Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2020)
- Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011)
Select Peer Reviewed Journal Articles & Book Chapters:
- [Manuscript submitted] “Legal Chameleons and Jurisdictional Borderlands in Nineteenth Century Egypt.” Submitted to a Brill edited volume titled, Transforming Empire: The Ottomans from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, Co-edited by Serpil Atamaz, Alexander Schweig, and Onur Inal. Scheduled for 2024.
- “Traffic Noise and Classism in Early Twentieth Century Egypt.” Submitted to an Oxford University Press edited volume tentatively titled, The Acoustics of Empire, Co-edited by Priyasha Mukhopadhyay & Peter McMurray. [Forthcoming in 2023].
- "Early Egyptian Radio: From Media-Capitalism to Media-Etatism, 1925-1934.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, special issue on “Media Transitions and Cultural Production in Arab Societies: Trans-historical Perspectives,” co-edited by Barbara Winckler & Teresa Pepe. [2021].
- “An Earwitness to History: Street Hawkers and their Calls in Early Twentieth Century Egypt.” Roundtable. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 48, no.1 (2016)
- “Jurisdictional Borderlands: Extraterritoriality and ‘Legal Chameleons’ in Precolonial Alexandria, 1840-1870” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 55, no.2 (April 2013): 305-329.
- “Coming to our Senses: Historicizing Sound and Noise in the Middle East” in History Compass 11, no.4 (April 2013): 305-315.
- “Media Capitalism: Colloquial Mass Culture and Nationalism in Egypt, 1908-1918” in The International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 01 (2010): 83-103.
- “Francophone Egyptian Nationalists, Anti-British Discourse, and European Public Opinion 1885-1910: The Case of Mustafa Kamil and Ya‘qub Sannu‘” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East [Duke University Press] 28, no. 1 (2008): 170-183.
In the news
- Twelve new Klarman Fellows to pursue innovative, timely research in A&S
- Fahmy wins Urban History Association book prize
- Podcast considers Nile’s centrality to Egypt
- Near Eastern studies offers Middle East series to local teachers
- Teach-In at Cornell: Combatting Islamophobia through education
- Asking questions of culture: media studies at Cornell
