A nuanced study of the struggle for modern identity in Egypt through art

Ther is no shortage of depictions of Arabs from the Western world. But what about Europeans? How are they perceived and understood in the Arab world? Focusing on visual culture, Occidentalism in Egypt sets out to establish a typology of Europeans and Europe as they are perceived and represented by Egyptians, through an interdisciplinary study that takes into account painting, cinema, literature, popular culture, and the satirical press.

Eschewing the binary of alienating Westernization and authentic Egyptianness, Brenda Segone shows how the quest for identity in modern Egyptian artistic expression unfolded during a period of profound upheaval, decolonization, and the assertion of national independence. She argues that the Egyptian gaze deconstructed the “European center” both politically and aesthetically. Thus, what became authentically Egyptian was an effective weapon of decolonization that was built collectively by Egyptians and foreigners. Unlike the Orientalists, who made their act of appropriation invisible, Egyptian Westernist artists gave their gesture visible form, and, even where the West appears as a negative authority or as a threat to local culture, the artists transcend stereotypes to achieve a form of universality in questioning both themselves and the myth of modern Egypt.