The ten Egyptian plays in this collection offer grassroots perspectives on the jubilation, terror, hope and heartbreak of mass uprising. Collectively, they sketch events unfolding in Egypt from the twilight of Hosni Mubarak's regime to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's ascendance to the presidency. A comprehensive introduction situates the plays within their social, political, and economic context, an in-depth translator's note delves into the challenges of translating Arabic for English-speaking audiences. Yasmeen Emam Shghaf's The Mirror and Hany Abdel Naser and Mohamed Mu'iz's They Say Dancing is a Sin explore how stigma and poverty silence women's voices. Sondos Shabayek and the BuSSy Company's documentary storytelling piece Tahrir Monologues and Said Solaiman's drama with movement The Window consider how collective mobilization empowers individuals to overcome personal fears. Ibrahim El-Husseini's symbolic ensemble drama Comedy of Sorrows and Ahmed Hassan Albana's melodrama In Search of Said Abu-Naga warn of the powerful forces waiting to hijack the revolution. Magdy El Hamzawy's satirical tragedy Report on Revolutionary Circumstances and Muhammed Marros's naturalistic three-hander The Visit reflect on how and why the revolutionary forces failed to dislodge the entrenched power structures. Ashraf Abdu's Coptic Church drama Sorrowful City foretells of a post-revolutionary deterioration into sectarian violence, and a stage adaptation of Khaled Al Khamissi's novel Taxi asks what has changed, if anything, for poor and working Egyptians in the years since Mubarak's overthrow.

Due to the diversity of perspectives and methodologies within the relative uniformity of the subject, this collection of papers offers a rich overview of the multidisciplinary research on Arabic literature. The book includes two thematic parts. The first of them pertains to studies on Arabic literature, more precisely, on historical chronicles concerning the First Crusade, one of al-Ğāḥiẓ's Treatise and also Modern Egyptian, Moroccan and Omani literary production. The second section of the volume contains papers on Semitic languages: Modern Hebrew, Maltese, Classical, Modern Standard, Egyptian and Lebanese Arabic. The volume is devoted to Elżbieta Gorska.

Ordinary Egyptians had the world in thrall during Egypt's 2011 revolution, whose epicenter was in Cairo's Tahrir ('Liberation') Square. Workers, activists, businesspeople, students, housewives, Muslims and Christians- all massed together on January 25. After just 18 days of peaceful protest, they stunned the world when they succeeded in deposing President Mubarak. 18 Days in Tahrir tells the inside story of Eqypt's revolution through the compelling personal stories of protestors who took to the streets and braved teargas, rubber and live bullets in order to make the voices heard.

Leslie Peirce uses the experience of a village in 16th century Anatolia as a lens to reinterpret major themes in the history of the Ottoman Empire: the conflict between the expanding Ottoman and declining Persian empires, the place of women in Ottoman society, and the clash between Sunni and Shi'a Islam.

What happened to the promise of Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring? On January 25, 2011, the world was watching Cairo. Egyptians of every stripe came together in Tahrir Square to protest Hosni Mubarak's three decades of brutal rule. After many hopeful, turbulent years, however, Egypt seems to be back where it began, with another strongman, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in power. How did this happen? In Circling the Square, Wendell Steavenson uses literary reportage to describe the intimate ironies and ad hoc movements of the Egyptian revolution—from Mubarak's fall to Mohammed Morsi's. Vignettes, incidents, anecdotes, conversations, musings, observations and character sketches cast a fresh light on this vital Middle Eastern story. Closely observing a wide range of people from a thug in a slum with a homemade gun to the democracy/documentary makers on Tahrir Square, to fundamentalist imams and military intelligence officers, Steavenson dares to ask: what am I looking at and how can I begin to understand it? With a novelist's eye for character, Steavenson paints indelible, instantly recognizable portraits and dilemmas that illuminate universal questions. What does democracy mean? What happens when a revolution throws the ideas and values of a society into crisis? What is a revolution, and, finally, what can it accomplish?

Sumud, meaning steadfastness in Arabic, is central to the issues of survival and resistance that are part of daily life for Palestinians. Although much has been written about the politics, leaders, and history of Palestine, less is known about how everyday working-class Palestinians exist day to day, negotiating military occupation and shifting social infrastructure. Wick’s powerful ethnography opens a window onto the lives of Palestinians, exploring specifically the experience of giving birth. Drawing upon oral histories, Wick follows the stories of mothers, nurses, and midwives in villages and refugee camps. She maps the ways in which individuals narrate and experience birth, calling attention to the genre and form of these stories. Placing these oral histories in context, the book looks at the history of the infrastructure surrounding birth and medicine in Palestine, from large hospitals to village clinics, to private homes. As the medical landscape changed from centralized urban hospitals to decentralized independent caregivers, women increasingly carved a space for themselves in public discourse and employed the concept of sumud to relate their everyday struggles.