The Streets Are Talking to Me

Affective Fragments in Sisi's Egypt

Maria Frederika Malmström

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780520304338
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520973046
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This sophisticated book presents new theoretical and analytical insights into the momentous events in the Arab world that began in 2011 and, more importantly, into life and politics in the aftermath of these events. Focusing on the qualities of the sensory world, Maria Frederika Malmström explores the dramatic differences after the Egyptian revolution and their implications for society—the lack of sound in the floating landscape of Cairo after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the role of material things in the sit-ins of 2013, the military evocation of masculinities (and the destruction of alternative ones), and how people experience pain, rage, disgust, euphoria, and passion in the body. While focused primarily on changes unfolding in Egypt, this study also investigates how materiality and affect provide new possibilities for examining societies in transition. A book of rare honesty and vulnerability, The Streets Are Talking to Me is a brilliant, unconventional, and self-conscious ethnography of the space where affect, material life, violence, political crisis, and masculinities meet one another.

 

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Streets Are Talking to Me
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction: Materiality and Politics of Affect in Egypt: A Study of (Non-)Change Grounded in Empirical Research
• 1. “Fake Face”: Body, Matter, Cityscape as One
• 2. Love of the Motherland and Loss of Its Meaning: Bodies of Passion, Shame, Grief, and Betrayal
• 3. Metamorphosing Sonic Rhythm: A Loss of Navigation
• 4. Vicious Circles of Uncertainty: Vibrant Affective Matter That Matters
• 5. The National Prison of Politics: Masculinities, Nationalism, and Islam
• Epilogue
• Notes
• References
• Index