Seminars

Many accounts of the cassette tend to conclude with its world debut in Berlin in 1963. But what if we treated this moment as nothing more than a footnote in a broader story? In this talk, Andrew Simon will explore the extraordinary impact of an ordinary technology in Egypt, where cassettes empowered an unprecedented number of people to create culture, circulate information, and challenge ruling regimes long before social media entered our daily lives. Together, we will revisit Egypt’s recent past, beginning with how the country’s cassette culture came to be during a time of tremendous change. Afterward, we will turn to a leading voice on the mixtape that is modern Egypt, Shaykh Imam, who passed away three decades ago. Born against the backdrop of World War I, Imam lost his sight as an infant and went on to become a political dissident. Through non-commercial cassettes, he reached a wider audience outside of state-controlled radio and challenged one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of Egypt’s ruling regimes: their stories. Recently, Imam has experienced a revival, with his songs resurfacing in Egypt during the Arab Spring and at demonstrations in New York City. In the course of exploring Imam’s life and legacy, we will listen to some of his most iconic songs and contemplate what the trajectory of one individual might teach us about misinformation, the tales we tell about the past in the present, and the making of the modern Middle East.