Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Aida in Egypt
• Chapter 2. How to Be an Effendi
• Chapter 3. The Story of Ahmad the Rat
• Chapter 4. Cabarets and the Mothers of the Nation
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

About the Author

Carmen M. K. Gitre is an assistant professor of history at Virginia Tech University. She holds a PhD in history from Rutgers University and previously taught in the international studies and history departments at Seattle University.

Reviews

Acting Egyptian offers a rigorously researched scholarly publication while avoiding the stuffiness of (some) academic writing…Theatre, history, and other humanities scholars interested in performance traditions and identity politics [in] the Middle East and North Africa will find Acting Egyptian especially worthwhile.
*Al Jadid*

This book is an important addition to a growing body of literature that seeks to elucidate the 'full range' of Egyptian voices, shining light on the cacophonous, bottom-up route by which national culture is contested and refashioned by those with less power...Gitre’s concise writing and the scope of her engagement with the extant historiography in framing her intriguing case studies makes Acting Egyptian an innovative introductory text to the formation of Egyptian national identity.
*American Historical Review*

Gitre writes a rigorous and enjoyable book of social history that points to exciting new avenues for Arabic theatre research...The way that Gitre positions her subjects as both objects of elite imaginations of collective identity and as active agents who trouble these imaginaries owes much to her attention to the slippages and inconsistencies of her archive. This, along with a lively prose style and attentive historical framing, makes Acting Egyptian an easily recommended book of social history, one that anyone interested in global theatre and performance history can learn from.
*Theatre Journal*

[An] excellent recent book...a lively study of the role of theater in staging cultural debates over what it meant to be Egyptian and modern, from 1869 (when both the Khedivial Opera House and the Suez Canal opened) until 1930...Acting Egyptian engages with the academic literature on Egypt and will appeal to historians and Arabic literature specialists.
*Middle East Journal*