Alia Mossallam is interested in songs that tell stories, and stories that tell of lesser known struggles behind better known events that mark World History. Her PhD dissertation explored a popular history of Nasserist Egypt through stories told and songs sung by people who contributed to milestone events of the 1952 revolution (the building of the Aswan High Dam, and the 1956 and 1967 wars in the Canal area). She has taught at the American University in Cairo (AUC), the Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences (CILAS), Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and held a series of history workshops ‘Ihky ya Tarikh’ with students, activists and artists in governorates all over Egypt, as an experiment in history-telling. She has also explored playwriting with Laila Soliman, Hassan El-Geretly and David Greig as attempts to bring histories of struggle unto the stage. She has various academic publications in the Journal of Water History, Cairo Papers for Social Sciences, History Workshop Journal, and contributions to edited volumes. For a wider public, she has written for Mada Masr, Jadaliyya and Ma'azif. In 2017 to 2019, Mossallam is a EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, where she is working on a book on a popular history of the building of the Aswan High Dam and starting a new project on the experience of the Egyptian Labour corps in World War I – mainly through songs, theatrics and cultural articulations of the experiences of war, labor and water. She is currently also working with Ala Younis on an exhibition "The Last Flood" about the experiences of the various literal and imaginary constructions of the Aswan High Dam, through various state, community and media archives and recordings

History

19th-21st Centuries

Cultural Studies

Ethnography

Ethnomusicology

Middle East/Near East Studies

Music

Algeria

Egypt

Syria

Cultural History

History Of Popular Movements/Revolt

Popular Historiographic Practices

Arabic (native)

English (fluent)

French (elementary)

German (intermediate)