Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Middle East Studies
Second Department
Politics and International Relations
Reader 1
Sumita Pahwa
Reader 2
Heather Ferguson
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2022 Julia V Brock
Abstract
The January 25th Revolution in Egypt began in 2011 when protestors took to the streets in Cairo and other Egyptian cities demanding that President Hosni Mubarak resign. They were armed with a savvy tool: humor. This study is a historical and theoretical approach to understanding political humor’s position as a space for politically subversive conversation in Egypt in the decade leading up to the January 25th Revolution, as well as during the revolution itself. Humor, media, and social movement theories are mobilized within this thesis to explain humor’s unique position within Egyptian society and its function within subversive, informal political networks called counterpublics. This thesis demonstrates the ways in which political humor acted as a vehicle through which people expressed more direct criticisms of Mubarak’s regime in a manner that included more people into the insurgent conversations taking place among revolutionary and non-revolutionary Egyptians between 2000 and 2011.
Recommended Citation
Brock, Julia, "NO LAUGHING MATTER: POLITICAL HUMOR AND MEDIA IN EGYPT’S JANUARY 25TH REVOLUTION" (2022). Scripps Senior Theses. 1859.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1859
