Gli intellettuali e la censura nell’Egitto post-rivoluzionario: il caso di Madà Maṣr
(Intellectuals and censorship in post-revolutionary Egypt: the case of Madà Maṣr)
in La rivista di Arablit, a. X, n. 19, giugno 2020, pp. 55-78.
In one of his latest articles, titled Un mai 68 Arabe? La révolution égyptienne au prisme du culturel (2015), Richard Jacquemond suggested to look at the Egyptian revolutionary period (2011-2013) as a cultural revolution that brought into question the so-called “nahḍawī paradigm”. Meanwhile, he called on researchers working on the symbolic goods of the contemporary Arab world(s) to describe how this transformation operates in the field. Hence, by shedding light on the cultural practices connected with the electronic website of Madà Maṣr, the present article tries to rise to this challenge. But it also argues for a wider and radical change of the theoretical framework used by European orientalists. This experience seems to confirm the hypothesis recalled above and shows the importance of including the so-called middlebrow culture in the research field dealing with the contemporary Arabic cultural fields.