Why They Stay: Humans and Sea Level Rise
On a windswept knuckle of land that juts proudly from Mexico’s Pacific coast, a tiny town perches between cliff and sea. With a smattering of artisanal fishers and restauranteurs, Tehuamixtle has tucked into a precarious edge, protected only slightly by the jagged black headlands of Punta Ipala. To get to the town by land requires
ICWA Fellow Guyer interviews Egyptian Author Sonallah Ibrahim
The oeuvre of Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim chronicles his country’s political dramas from the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser. At 79, he is lifelong agitator, “a symbol of the independent intellectual,” as a major Egyptian paper put it. In the Spring 2017 issue of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Ibrahim speaks to Fellow Jonathan Guyer about the “beautiful
Onyinye Edeh’s Seattle Adventures
Current ICWA Fellow Onyinye Edeh has a busy week in Seattle. Edeh appeared on a panel with Teen Vogue editor in chief Elaine Welteroth, actor Yara Shahidi, angel investor Jonathan Spostato, and other fantastic advocates for “[building] a healthier, more equitable future for people everywhere.” PATH’s celebrations had over 1500 people in attendance. Edeh also
Forced into Marriage at 17, Now Fighting for Divorce: A Tale of a Child Bride in Nigeria
In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before reaching age 18. One in nine is married under age 15. – [1] In Africa, Nigeria is expected to have the largest absolute number of child brides. The country has seen a decline in child marriage of about 1 percent per year over the
The Sacred Bridge
In a recent Newsletter (JVC-3), I shared the perspectives of Acehnese Muslims in an attempt to complicate singular notions of Islam. The Story of the Stick tuned in to the (dis)harmonies of Islamic belief and practice, and set the stage for a consideration of the role that religiosity and gender play in Banda Aceh’s political
Speech Bubbles: Comics and Political Cartoons in Sisi’s Egypt
The Century Foundation invited me to contribute a chapter on Egyptian cartoons and comics for Arab Politics beyond the Uprisings: Experiments in an Era of Resurgent Authoritarianism. This chapter builds on extensive fieldwork conducted during my two-year ICWA fellowship, offering the most comprehensive study to date of the challenges facing cartoonists in Egypt. I
Nationalism for Kids: How Egyptian Comics Teach Conflict
I presented a version of this paper in February at “Framing War and Conflict in Comics,” the second annual Symposium on Arab Comics at the American University of Beirut. When General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ran for the Egyptian presidency in the spring of 2014, the children’s magazine Samir published a stoic caricature of him its
Vulnerable, Together: the Ocean and the Sailor
On the ocean, the horizon can feel crushingly wide. From the cockpit, we can only react to what the expanse reveals—and what it doesn’t, with frustratingly vague clues. As we sail through the tropics in rainy season—filled with towering thunderclouds and sudden, violent storms at any hour—we find ourselves often peering nervously into the horizon.
Jonathan Guyer on Egyptian Surrealism
In the Los Angeles Review of Books, ICWA fellow Jonathan Guyer has published a review essay on the resurgent interest in Egypt’s little-known Surrealist movement, co-authored with American University in Cairo Professor Surti Singh. In “The Double Game of Egyptian Surrealism: How to Curate a Revolutionary Movement,” Guyer and Singh consider the legacy and enduring relevance of
Remembering Alexandria’s Visionary
In my first piece for the New York Times, I write an homage to the great Alexandrian scholar Mostafa el-Abbadi, who passed away in February. Several obituaries of el-Abbadi appeared in Egyptian newspapers, but most merely consisted of his curriculum vitae. No remembrance captured his colorful disposition and feisty erudition, let alone his ambivalent relationship