Tourism in Egypt diminished after the Arab Spring in 2011 and acts of violence like the attack on a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula, and the economy is now half of what it was in pre-2010, but tourism is slowly getting back on track . As Lucas Peterson noted in his travel diary for the New York Times, Cairo, Vibrant and Budget-Friendly, Is Ready Again for the World Stage, cities like Cairo have much to offer the traveler in terms of history, food, and culture. and at a very small cost. Peterson’s article references a spacious $20/night hotel room and private day tours to the pyramids in Giza in the $60 range. Tourists will also be interested in the new, $1 Billion, 650 thousand-square-foot Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza which is set to open in May 2018 and is one of the most anticipated museum openings and architectural destinations of 2018 worldwide. The building will have about 100,000 artifacts on display (30,000 of which have never been shown to the public) including the complete Tutankhamun collection.
J. Pascal Sébah, ca. 1880
(Reproduced with permission of
Griffith Institute, University of Oxford).
New Yorkers, however, do not have to travel to Egypt to see and engage with Egyptian artifacts, thanks to the rich collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum (readers may be interested in checking out this Egyptian Streets series, East-West Chitchat: Egyptian Museums Between Cairo and New York, in which an American and Egyptian author share personal experiences of Egyptian history through visits to museums in Cairo and New York).
Here at the Center for Applied Liberal Arts, we are debuting a focused survey course (Cairo: From Medieval to Modern) on the historical development of what is today Cairo, from its founding to the present day, through the lens of the different settlements. The quick success of the Islamic conquest of Egypt in 641 brought about major changes, particularly in urban development and artistic design: new capitals were founded with each dynasty in area around present-day Cairo due to its strategic location at the apex of the Delta. Cairo was founded in 969 as the new royal capital of Egypt, and has maintained its status as a major metropolis until the present day. Throughout its long history, it has rivaled, if not surpassed, in urban and cultural development more ancient counterparts like Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordoba Participating students will have an opportunity to visit the recently renovated Islamic art galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to see cultural artifacts discussed in class, from calligraphy to illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, metalwork, glass, pottery, textile arts, and architectural elements.
Other courses of interest in Spring 2018
Middle Eastern Languages – Persian and Arabic
Asian Fine and Decorative Arts
Ancient Near East: Religion and Culture
The Great New York Collections: A History of Art Collecting and Art Museums in New York
New York Art Fairs this Spring: From the Armory show to NADA
From Impressionism to Modernism: Movements and Markets
Postwar and Contemporary Art Markets, Movements, and Money
Inside Art Litigation: Untold Stories
Contemporary Architecture 1990-present
