Sarah Nagaty, a postdoctoral researcher in intersectional feminism, dives into her book about the collective dreams of Egyptians, interlinking the 2011 Revolution and Nasser’s presidency. She discusses how collective aspirations resonate through history, shaping social movements. The podcast highlights the idea of 'collective dreaming' while also addressing the often-overlooked Nubian displacement caused by the construction of the High Dam. Nagaty draws on theorists like Raymond Williams to explore how cultural expressions like poetry and graffiti archive these transformative feelings.
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insights INSIGHT
Understanding the Collective Dream
The "collective dream" describes how people unite around shared hopes during revolutionary change.
It captures the emotional structure beneath societal shifts, beyond just organized experiences.
insights INSIGHT
Collective Dream vs Utopia
The collective dream differs from utopia by staying within historical possibilities.
Egyptians' revolutionary hopes aimed for real change, not an impossible ideal.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Author's Personal Revolutionary Experience
Sarah Nagaty experienced Egypt's 2011 revolution personally, shaping her view of the collective dream.
She describes carrying the burden of past failed dreams and renewed hopes in that moment.
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Sarah Nagaty's 'The Collective Dream' examines the shared aspirations of Egyptians during transformative periods, connecting the 2011 Revolution and Nasser's era through cultural expressions. It introduces the concept of 'collective dreaming' to map the underlying emotions driving socially significant moments. The study encompasses the structure of feelings experienced by both activist minorities and the broader revolutionary masses. In specific historical contexts, a sense of unity and shared purpose emerges among diverse groups. This phenomenon, termed the 'collective dream,' represents a longing carried across generations of Egyptians, reflecting their enduring hope for a better future.
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The Collective Dream: Egyptians Longing For A Better Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) links two seminal moments in Egypt’s history – the Revolution of 25th January 2011 and the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser – through various cultural manifestations. It conceives the concept of “collective dreaming” to map out the subliminal feeling that runs deep through experiences of socially transformative moments. Sarah Nagaty has extensively studied the structure of feelings that encompasses the experiences not only of activist minorities but the broader mass of revolutionary movements. In certain historical moments, hopes and aspirations bind together millions of people from all walks of life: students, workers, farmers, and middle-class professionals. Nagaty calls this phenomenon the “collective dream”, something which has been carried through generations of Egyptians.
In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat down with Sarah Nagaty to discuss the conceptual roots of the collective dream and the overlooked histories of Nubian displacement during the construction of the High Dam. They also explored how thinkers like Raymond Williams and Lauren Berlant shaped Nagaty’s method of reading revolutionary time and cultural memory, as well as how vernacular poetry, reportage, and graffiti served as vital archival traces of collective feeling.
Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature.
New Books in Sociology 