Street Sounds : Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt

As the twentieth century roared on, transformative technologies-from trains, trams, and automobiles to radios and loudspeakers-fundamentally changed the sounds of the Egyptian streets. The cacophony of everyday life grew louder, and the Egyptian press featured editorials calling for the regulation of not only mechanized and amplified sounds, but also the voices of street vendors, the music of wedding processions, and even the traditional funerary wails. Ziad Fahmy offers the first historical examination of the changing soundscapes of urban Egypt, highlighting the mundane sounds of street life, while "listening" to the voices of ordinary people as they struggle with state authorities for ownership of the streets. 0Interweaving infrastructural, cultural, and social history, Fahmy analyzes the sounds of modernity, using sounded sources as an analytical tool for examining the past. 'Street Sounds' also reveals a political dimension of noise by demonstrating how the growing middle classes used sound to distinguish themselves from the Egyptian masses. This book contextualizes sound, layering historical analysis with a sensory dimension, bringing us closer to the Egyptian streets as lived and embodied by everyday people Cover 1 Contents 10 Maps, Figures, and Tables 12 Note on Transliteration and Translation 16 Preface 18 Acknowledgments 20 INTRODUCTION: Historicizing Sounds and Soundscapes 26 Part I: Mundane Street Sounds and Ownership of Public Space 48 1 Walking the City: Street Voices, Traffic, and the Mundane Sounds of Everyday Life 50 2 Silencing the Streets: Classism, Fear of the Crowd, and Regulating Sounds and Bodies 78 Part II: Infrastructure, Technology, and the Sounds of Modernity 106 3 Roads and Tracks: Modern Traffic and the Sensory and Social Impact of Trams and Automobiles 108 4 The Soundscapes of Modernity: Electricity, Lights, and the Sounds of Nightlife 145 Part III: The Sounds of Public Spectacles: Between Ordinary People and State Legitimacy 180 5 The Sounds of Weddings and Funerals: From Brass Bands to Wails and Ululations 182 6 Sounding Out State Power: Cannons, Music, and Loudspeakers 214 CONCLUSION: Class Distinction and Remembering Lost Sounds 240 Notes 252 Bibliography 286 Index 306 A 306 B 306 C 307 D 307 E 308 F 308 G 308 H 308 I 309 J 309 K 309 L 309 M 309 N 310 O 310 P 310 Q 311 R 311 S 311 T 312 U 312 V 313 W 313 Y 313 Z 313