Tamer el-Leithy
Dr. Tamer el-Leithy is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. He studied Economics in Cairo and worked as an oil company economist. Then, upon reading a historical novel set in medieval Cairo, he discovered a passion for medieval history, which led him back to graduate school to read medieval history in Cairo, then at Cambridge University (MPhil., 1998), and Princeton (PhD, 2005). He joined the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Research Fellow (2003-06) and taught at NYU (2007-14).
Converting Objects and Words: Egypt’s Arabization in five objects (11th – 14th c.)
The move from Coptic to Arabic – as the everyday language of most Coptic Christians as well as the official language of the Coptic Church – is one of the least understood cultural transformations of the medieval Islamic world. This lecture will address the history of Egypt’s momentous Arabization through a close examination of five remarkable archival objects, including private family letters, a magical talisman, an exquisite Coptic-Arabic Bible, a humble petition to a bishop, and a Christian fatwa (legal responsum). Attending to the materiality of these objects allows us to chart an alternative longue durée history of Egypt’s Arabization (11th – 14th centuries), shedding light on wider cultural consequences of this transformation.