[Sci-tech-public] A talk by Hanan Hammad, Tuesday, February 22

[Margo Collett]

Hanan Hammad

Tuesday, February 22

4-6 PM

E51-095




Industrial Sexuality: Prostitution in al-Mahalla al-Kubra, Egypt, 1927-1949

Dealing with gender and sexuality as intimate aspects of the social transformation associated with the spread of modern industry in Egypt, this talk traces licensed and unlicensed prostitution in al-Mahalla since the establishment of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company (MSMW) in al-Mahalla in 1927, until prostitution was outlawed in Egypt in 1949. The establishment of the MSWC as the largest domestically-owned textile enterprise in Egypt set in motion unsettling dynamics which transformed the town's socio-economic life. Among these was the immigration of thousands of male and female peasants hired to work in the mill, proliferation of prostitution and venereal diseases, and exposure of private intimacy to public scrutiny and judgment.  On one hand, along with public discourses on morality and public health and the conditions of the working class, the state interfered and selectively criminalized particular sexual practices. On the other hand, people of the town continued to practice public prostitution and fight secret prostitution. In doing so, they and the prostitutes themselves were active shapers of their lives rather than mere subjects of the law and the state’s power.  Studying prostitution in al-Mahalla during this period of exceptionally rapid socio-economic change and population growth not only gives us a window on a particular type of illicit sexuality and public morality in a colonial context, it also hints as to gender and inter-communal relations on the margins of a local community, and how its society was transformed. I use prostitution in al-Mahalla in the first half of the 20th century to trace how a provincial community negotiated both an encroaching colonial state, and its puritanical nationalist discourses.


Hanan Hammad is assistant professor of history at Texas Christian University. In 2010-2011 she is the fellow of Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe at the Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. She earned her Ph.D in Middle East History with a supporting field in Persian studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2009. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript tentatively entitled “Mechanizing People: Industrialization, Sexuality, Gender, and Social Transformation in Modern Egypt”. Her publications include "Between Egyptian 'national purity' and 'Local Flexibility': Prostitution in al-Mahalla al-Kubra in the first half of the 20th century" forthcoming in Journal of Social History and " From Condemnation to Fascination: and the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini in the Egyptian Press” in Radical History Review. She holds a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Cairo University, and before coming to the world of academia she worked as a journalist in Egyptian, Kuwaiti and American newspapers.

																			For more information contact mcollett at mit.edu 
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