Khaled Fahmy on the Politics of the Body in Egypt

Egypt Independent has just published an important opinion piece by the head of AUC's History Department, Khaled Fahmy, about the politics of the body in the current revolutionary moment, and how this politics reverberates all the way back to the rise of the modern Egyptian state in the nineteenth century.  Here Fahmy draws upon his own past research, particularly that which examined the development of a School for Midwives under Mehmed Ali, explored in a chapter of Lila Abu Lughod's edited volume, Remaking Women.  But those who are keen to learn more of this politics of the body in nineteenth-century Egypt will particularly not want to miss Liat Kozma's recently published book Policing Egyptian Women, which looks at the link between claims about virginity and state power.