Lecture | LUCIS What's New?! Series
Demystifying Alexandria: Insights from Alexandria about 21st century Orientalism and (post-)Colonialism
- Eduard Cousin
- Date
- Thursday 6 March 2025
- Time
- Serie
- What's New?! Spring Lecture Series 2025
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.30
‘Alexandria used to be beautiful’ is what Alexandrians often sigh when talking about their city. Nostalgia for and the glorification of the so-called cosmopolitian period late 19th, early 20th century is widespread. The image of that period, during which the city flourished culturally and economically and was shaped by large Greek, Italian and Jewish communities, keeps being portrayed and reproduced as something what Alexandria could and should be. Moreover, that image is juxtaposed with the image of the present: A city in decay, religiously conservative, impoverished and devoid of large European communities.
This narrative on the city marked the starting point of my research, conducted through literature and extensive interviews with Alexandrians. It focuses on the changes the city underwent in its modern history, how these changes are being depicted and interpreted, and what the influence of both this history and its depiction is on the present city. What emerges is a city that has been pushed into the periferie and continues to feel the effects of eurocentric perspectives and policies. Meanwhile, the city is host to a lively debate that centers around an ongoing struggle to break free from and come to terms with a colonial past, persistent orientalist projections and the postcolonial order in the Arab world.
About the speaker
Eduard Cousin lived in Egypt from 2013 to 2024 where he worked as editor for local media and freelance correspondent for various international and Dutch media, among which France24, Al Jazeera, NRC and EW. In 2022 and 2023 he taught a university course at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo on the politics of development in Egypt. In 2021 his book Nu de wereld niet meer kijkt appeared, a journalist’s account of the political and economic developments in Egypt after the Arab Spring. In October 2024 his second book, Alexandrië – het verhaal van een stad die leeft in het verleden, was published. He currently lives with his family in Amsterdam and works, among other things, as freelance foreign editor for Dutch public broadcaster NOS.
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