2008 — Leeds Honor Book in Urban Anthropology – Society for Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology Living in Egypt at the turn of the millennium, cultural anthropologist L. L. Wynn was struck by the juxtapositions of Western, Gulf Arab, and Egyptian viewpoints she encountered. For some, Egypt is the land of mummies and pharaohs. For others, it is a vortex of decadence, where nightlife promises a chance to salivate over belly dancers and maybe even glimpse a movie star. Offering a new approach to ethnography, Pyramids and Nightclubs examines cross-cultural encounters to bring to light the counterintuitive ways in which Egypt is defined. Guiding readers on an armchair journey that introduces us to Russian and Australian belly dancers on Nile cruise ships, Egyptian rumors about an Arab prince and his royal entourage, Saudi girls looking for a less restrictive dating scene, and other visitors to this "antique" land, Wynn uses the lens of travel and tourism to depict a fascinating and often surprising version of Egypt, while exploring the concept of stereotype itself. Tracing the history of Western and Arab fascination with Egypt through spurious hunts for lost civilizations and the new economic disparities brought about by the oil industry, Pyramids and Nightclubs ultimately describes the ways in which moments of cultural contact, driven by tourism and labor migration, become eye-opening opportunities for defining self and other.

The Rough Guide Snapshot to Cairo and the Pyramids is the ultimate travel guide to this iconic part of Egypt. It guides you through the region with reliable information and comprehensive coverage of all the sights and attractions, from the Egyptian Museum and the Coptic churches of Old Cairo to the pyramid fields at Giza and Dahshur. Detailed maps and up-to-date listings pinpoint the best cafés, restaurants, hotels, shops, bars, and nightlife--ensuring you have the best trip possible, whether passing through, staying for the weekend or longer. Also included is the Basics section from the Rough Guide to Egypt, with all the practical information you need for traveling in and around the region, including transportation, food and drink, pricing, health care, cultural tips, and shopping. Also published as part of the Rough Guide to Egypt.

This volume explores Arab cultural life since World War II. Chapters cover topics such as radio/TV, the press, cinema, music, theatre, popular religion, belly dance, western consumerism, sport and the Arabic language.

In The Security Archipelago, Paul Amar provides an alternative historical and theoretical framing of the refashioning of free-market states and the rise of humanitarian security regimes in the Global South by examining the pivotal, trendsetting cases of Brazil and Egypt. Addressing gaps in the study of neoliberalism and biopolitics, Amar describes how coercive security operations and cultural rescue campaigns confronting waves of resistance have appropriated progressive, antimarket discourses around morality, sexuality, and labor. The products of these struggles—including powerful new police practices, religious politics, sexuality identifications, and gender normativities—have traveled across an archipelago, a metaphorical island chain of what the global security industry calls "hot spots." Homing in on Cairo and Rio de Janeiro, Amar reveals the innovative resistances and unexpected alliances that have coalesced in new polities emerging from the Arab Spring and South America's Pink Tide. These have generated a shared modern governance model that he terms the "human-security state."

Cairo is a city obsessed with honor and respectability—and love affairs. Sara, a working-class woman, has an affair with a married man and becomes pregnant, only to be abandoned by him; Ayah and Zeid, a respectably engaged couple, argue over whether Ayah’s friend is a prostitute or a virgin; Malak, a European belly dancer who sometimes gets paid for sex, wants to be loved by a man who won’t treat her like a whore just because she’s a dancer; and Alia, a Christian banker who left her abusive husband, is the mistress of a wealthy Muslim man, Haroun, who encourages business by hosting risqué parties for other men and their mistresses. Set in transnational Cairo over two decades, Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt is an ethnography that explores female respectability, male honor, and Western theories and fantasies about Arab society. L. L. Wynn uses stories of love affairs to interrogate three areas of classic anthropological theory: mimesis, kinship, and gift. She develops a broad picture of how individuals love and desire within a cultural and political system that structures the possibilities of, and penalties for, going against sexual and gender norms. Wynn demonstrates that love is at once a moral horizon, an attribute that “naturally” inheres in particular social relations, a social phenomenon strengthened through cultural concepts of gift and kinship, and an emotion deeply felt and desired by individuals.

Visitors have often remarked on the light of Egypt. There is something about the soft diffusion of sunlight in the country that makes it visually special. Beginning in the early nineteenth century a combination of that light and the new, more sensitive technology of lithography conspired together to allow artists to capture with unprecedented fidelity the country's monuments, Pharaonic as well as Islamic. But there is another way in which the word "light" captures the reality of Egypt. In Arabic it is said that the blood of a people is either "light" or "heavy." Where the blood of others in the region could be said to be heavy, that of the Egyptians is emphatically light and it always seems to have been that way. Here, the word serves as a proxy for "cheerful" or "optimistic." The book that follows captures some of that fundamental Egyptian buoyancy and optimism, and it was not very hard to do. The attitude is infectious and anyone who has lived for any length of time in the country is in danger of succumbing. The pieces reflect a sometimes wry, occasionally humorous, but always affectionate view of an essentially unchanging Egypt.

Provides practical advice on planning a trip to Egypt; describes points of interest in each section of the country; and includes information on restaurants, nightspots, shops, and lodging.