Dr. Walid El Khachab playfully subverts the title of “Chitchat on the Nile” in his new book “Laughter Over the Nile”, replacing whispers with roaring comedy. This work analyzes 21 classics of Egyptian cinematic comedy—films that sparked decades of Arab laughter—while exploring how Egypt adapted Western (particularly American and French) comedic tropes into golden-era masterpieces (1940s–1970s).

Following his seminal study of Fouad El-Mohandes’ art in “Engineer of Joy” (2022), El Khachab returns to examine comedy’s cultural, social, and political agency when “Egyptianized” from Western sources. He frames film adaptations as part of a broader modernist project—what he calls “the ideology of vaudeville”—where cinema promoted national liberation values while gatekeeping middle-class mobility.

Join us for this rich discussion on:
Wednesday, July 23 | 7:00 PM
@ Jesuit Cultural Center, Alexandria

About Dr. Walid El Khachab

Professor & Coordinator of Arabic Studies at York University (Canada) since 2007, his scholarship spans 65+ chapters/articles on:

• Arab/Islamic cultural identity & modernity in film/literature

• Political dimensions of Sufism

• Sacred imagery in cinema
  Author of:

• Laughter Over the Nile: Comedy Adaptation in Cinema (Mirrors, 2025)

• Engineer of Joy: Fouad El-Mohandes & Cinema’s Unconscious (Mirrors, 2023)
  Translator of Lacan, Todorov, and Zumthor’s Introduction to Oral Poetry.

Moderated by:

Abdel Rahim Youssef
Award-winning Egyptian poet & translator (41 translated books, including Bernard Mandeville’s Three Studies on Ethics).

Free admission with prior registration

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