Top Posts of 2012
#1 Bibliography of the Egyptian Uprisings
The single most viewed post of 2012 is my bibliography of books and articles on the Egyptian uprising. I posted this when I realized that I had over 150 entries in my working bibliography. It’s been updated again and again–as of Dec. 31st, this bibliography has grown to 283, and it will keep growing through the new year as more scholarly output appears on the Egyptian revolution. So keep visiting!
#2 More from Anthropologists on the Egyptian Revolution
The second most visited post of 2012 was my review of the second issue of American Ethnologist which included nine brief (3-9 pages) essays on the Egyptian revolution.
#3 Anthropologists Writing About Copts In Postrevolutionary Egypt
In the third ranked post of 2012, I offered a brief survey of eight recently published works on Coptic Christians in Egypt. I learned about these article from anthrocybib, a blog tracking recent publications in the anthropology of Christianity co-authored by my colleague James Bielo and UCSD anthropologist Jon Bialecki.
One of my personal favorites. Chapter Three of Connected in Cairo is about Pokemon as a part of cosmopolitan social capital. This post reflects on changes in global children’s fads, and my encounters with Beyblades in Cairo in 2005.
#5 e-Humor in Egypt: The Man Behind the Omar Suleiman Meme
“The Man Behind Omar Suleiman” was an extremely funny bit of mimetic expressive culture that arose in February 2011 around a mysterious glowering figure who appeared behind Omar Suleiman in his speech announcing President Mubarak’s resignation. This blog post describing the many manifestations of this funny social media practice was visited hundreds of times over the course of the year.
#6 The Mystery of Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman’s death was reported in a straightforward way in the Western media but some Middle Eastern media had many questions. An editorial in an Arab newspaper provides an opportunity for me to explore–anthropologically–the epistemology of conspiracy theorizing.
#7 Muslim-Christian relations After the Arab Spring: Disappointing Special Journal issue
I’m assuming the hundreds of viewers of this post were interested in Muslim-Christian relations after the Arab Spring–an important and interesting topic but not one, alas, well covered in this special issue on the topic, as the subhead indicates.
#8 Egyptian Televangelists Build a New Egypt Through an Ethical Revolution
This popular post reflected on the recent work of Yasmine Moll. It picks up where my discussion of Amr Khaled ends in Connected in Cairo (Chapter Four) and looks at how contemporary Muslim TV preachers are fitting the revolution into their articulations of a society revitalized by a recommitment to Islamic piety.
#9 Anthropologists Write About Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt a Year After January 25th
This post featured my descriptions of and reflections on set of seventeen brief, thought-provoking short essays (which they call a “Hot Spot”) published by the Cultural Anthropology web site. The project was edited by Julia Elyachar of the University of California, Irvine and my friend Jessica Winegar of Northwestern University.
#10 Is There a Deep State in Egypt?
This post was a reflection on two very different pieces by freelance journalists/bloggers about the ongoing revolution in Egypt. Both pieces claim that there is a deep embedded, broadly distributed coterie of beneficiaries of the policies of the old regime who are perfectly pleased to see Mubarak ousted but who do not want to change the system that exists–analogous to the “deep state” many political scientists have written about in reference to Turkey.
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