A discussion with Soha Bayoumi, Allston Burr Resident Dean of Kirkland House, Assistant Dean of Harvard College, and Lecturer in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University; and Ahmed Ragab, Richard T. Watson Associate Professor of Science and Religion at Harvard Divinity School, Affiliate Associate Professor at the Department of the History of Science, and Director of the Science, Religion and Culture Program at Harvard University.
Presented by the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University and the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, the We Live in Cairo Act II Series invites audience members to remain at the theater following select performances for a curated discussion. The discussions are free and open to ticket-holders of any performance, subject to availability.
Written by brothers Daniel Lazour and Patrick Lazour, We Live in Cairo is inspired by the young Egyptians who took to the streets in 2011 to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak. It follows six revolutionary students armed with laptops and cameras, guitars, and spray cans from the jubilation of Cairo's Tahrir Square where the Egyptian revolution unfolded through the tumultuous years that followed.
For tickets and more information, please contact A.R.T. Ticket Services at 617.547.8300.
The discussion will follow the 7:30pm performance at A.R.T. (Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St, Cambridge).
Speaker Bios
Soha Bayoumi is the Allston Burr Resident Dean of Kirkland House and Assistant Dean of Harvard College, and a lecturer in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Trained in political theory, political philosophy, and intellectual history, she works on the question of justice at the intersection of political theory, intellectual history, and science, medicine, and technology studies. With a focus on medicine and public health, her research addresses the question of health and social justice, biomedical ethics, and the links between medicine and politics, with a geographical focus on the Middle East and a special interest in postcolonial and gender studies. She is currently finishing a book manuscript (co-authored with Sherine Hamdy, UC Irvine) on the role of doctors in the Egyptian uprising and working on another book project on the question of health and social justice and the social roles of doctors in postcolonial Egypt. She is an editor of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS) and associate editor of the Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies (JIMS).
Ahmed Ragab is a historian of science and medicine and a scholar of science and religion. He received his MD from Cairo University School of Medicine in 2005, and PhD from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris in 2010. He is the author of The Medieval Islamic Hospital: Medicine, Religion, and Charity (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Ragab’s research focuses on the history of medicine, science, and religion and the development of cultures of science and cultures of religion in the Middle East and the Islamic World. He also studies and publishes on gender and sexuality in the medieval and early modern Middle East, postcolonial studies of science and religion, and other questions in the history of science and religion.
