Annotated Bibliography

Karnouk, Liliane. Contemporary Egyptian Art. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995.

The author is part Egyptian herself, and teaches at the American University in Cairo. This is a sequel of sorts to her Modern art book with over 150 pictures, all in color and of a decent size. She highlights the artists who will have enduring merit years from now and discusses difficult topics like Modernism. This is a valuable source and a reader with a developed background in art in general would have an easier time than one without.

Karnouk, Liliane. Modern Egyptian Art: The Emergence a National Style. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1998.

Compared to others, it’s a small book, but it has good information. There are pictures throughout, most in black and white, however. The author gives a brief overview of Pharonic art, which is necessary to understand the modern art that later emerges.

Nashashibi, Salwa Mikdadi. Forces of Change-Artists of the Arab World. Washington, D.C.: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1994.

With its large format and easy-going style, this book is a great source for pictures. It has an extensive biography of the many artists in the book as well as a reading list. It concentrates heavily on women’s art and a part of the book is written by Wijdan Ali. It also goes into computer art, something I’ve not heard much about in general.

Castelo-Banco, Salwa el-Shawan. “Radio and Musical Life in Egypt”. Revista de Musicologia. Vol. 16, No. 3, 1993.

This article goes through an historical outline of Radio in Egypt in six pages. It talks of the beginnings with amateur radio, to broadcasting, to the ‘era’ of radio and ending with advent of tape cassettes. I found these authors mentioned numerous times and have found these two articles to be quite helpful.

Castelo-Banco, Salwa el-Shawan. “The Heritage of Arab Music in 20^th Century Egypt”. Musica e Storia. Vol. 5. 1997.

This nine page article focuses on other aspects that ethnomusicologists often overlook. It starts out with musical domains, and goes into traditions and heritage. For readers without much background on music terms, some words will be incomprehensible, but overall, the article is a good read.

World Music-Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East/The Rough Guide. Ed. Broughton, Simon, and El lingham, Mark, and Trillo, Richard. London: The Rough Guides, 2000.

This longer article is divided up into classical music and the rest. The other section ranges from folk music to belly dancing, wedding music, Nubian, and the current pop stars. The classical section discuss the poetry of music and gives quick glances at some of the major singers.

Ali, Wijdan. Modern Islamic Art-Development and Continuity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

The extremely well-known author gives a summary of the pioneers of art and goes into women artists, teaching art, and art societies. There are few photographs and they are small and in black and white, making this source only good for information.

Hosny, Farouk and Henein, Adam. Contemporary Egyptian Artists and Heirs to an Ancient Tradition. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.

Although this book concentrates mainly on those two artists listed in the title, there is enough general information available about contemporary Egyptian art to be worthwhile. It’s mainly an exhibition that was in the Metropolitan, so it includes many large color plates. Hosny was the Minister of Culture in Egypt for twelve years, making this source seem like an inside view of Egyptian politics.

Gharib, Samir. A Hundred Years of Fine Arts in Egypt. Guizeh, Egypt: Prism Publications, 1998.

This book touched on the major areas of the arts, painting, sculpture, ceramics, and a category I’ve rarely seen mentioned, graphics. It tells of its history which started in the 30’s and became more popular in the 50’s. The book is easy to read and has a plethora of color plates, but they are at the end of the book. This makes it harder to remember what artist did what even with the names by the pictures.

http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M151/Arab_Music1.html

This website has four parts in all on Arab music, detailing many of the instruments used along with pictures. It tells of the contact with Western music and shows pages of Arab sheet music. If the viewer is so inclined, going to sections before and after it will show a dictionary of musical terms, as well as elements of music. This is more detailed than a few sources, but made for the average person.

Floyd, Malcolm. Composing the Music of Africa: Composition, Interpretation, and Realization. Aldershot [Hants]; Brookfield [Ut.] USA: Ashgate, 1999.