The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies, Department of World Languages and Literatures (WLL) and Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) were pleased to present award-winning editor and translator, Raphael Cormack, on Friday, September 24th, 2021, as part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies' Fall Seminar Series.

Abstract
The conventional history of cosmopolitan Egypt has its traditional heroes - Lawrence Durrell, Constantine Cavafy, E.M. Forster - and is usually based in Alexandria. This talk tells a different story of Egyptian cosmopolitanism, one that took place in Cairo's Arabic-speaking nightclubs, theatres, and music halls. Here, Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians, French, and more, all came together to put on the shows that came to define this golden age of Egypt's entertainment industry. This talk looks at some of the characters of that period and attempts to reconceptualize our image of "Cosmopolitan Egypt".

Speaker bio
Raphael Cormack has a PhD in Egyptian Theatre from the University of Edinburgh. He has edited two collections of short stories translated from Arabic - The Book of Khartoum and The Book of Cairo. He is also a writer on Arabic culture and his work has appeared in the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, The LA Review of Books, and elsewhere. Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s ([ Ссылка ]) is his latest book publication.

Moderator
Eirini D. Kotsovili studied History and Hispanic studies at McGill University (B.A), and Literature at University of Oxford (M.St, D.Phil), where she was also Junior Dean (Somerville College). At SFU, she is a Committee member of the Stavros Niarchos Centre for Hellenic Studies, the Institute for the Humanities, as well as an Associate member of the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies and the Department of World Languages and Literatures. She leads the Memory and Trauma research cluster, together with Dr. Capperdoni and Dr. Horncastle (HUM Dept) and serves as an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Modern Hellenism. Her research and teaching interests revolve around the notions of gender and identity, Modern Greece (comparative/transnational approach) and contemporary cultural production reflecting on the relation between past and present within various socio-political contexts.

SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies: [ Ссылка ]

Department of World Languages and Literatures: [ Ссылка ]

Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies: [ Ссылка ]

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