Cairo Studies in English (CSE) is a journal of research in literature, linguistics and translation studies, published by the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Egypt (ISSN: 0575-1624). The emergence of CSE marks an important moment in the history of the decolonization of Egyptian universities. The first volume was published as The Annual Bulletin of English Studies in 1953, yet a second volume did not appear in 1954 due to an extended period of anti-colonial political turmoil, reflected in the University by the academic decolonization and nationalization of the Department of English in 1954 - a process compared to the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956.

The Department revived its publication by issuing Cairo Studies in English in 1959 (edited by Magdi Wahba). The Department Library holds copies of the 1953 and 1959 volumes, followed by the 1981 volume entitled Centenary Essays on George Eliot and subtitled “Supplement to Cairo Studies in English”. There are online traces of the volumes published in the 1960s. The archives of the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research maintain that Cairo Studies in English was catalogued in the 1970s while it had been catalogued earlier with the Library of Congress.

Almost a decade after its 1981 volume, CSE was issued again in 1990, with the publication of Cairo Studies in English – a Special Issue in Honour of Magdi Wahba. CSE continued being published irregularly in the form of an occasional volume, a festschrift or a book. In 2016, the Department Council adopted a Cairo Studies in English publication plan, which involves an annual thematic publication of the journal and a commitment to ensure the continuity and visibility of the journal. With the publication of the 2017 volume on “Language, Literature and the Arts,” CSE went online, hosted by the official national online publisher, the Egyptian Knowledge Bank.

Our vision for Cairo Studies in English is to ensure its accessibility as an Egyptian journal in the humanities and social sciences of international standing. (For more, go to Journal Info.)

Call for Paper

Conjuring up Decolonial Alternatives:
Subversive Navigations of Transnational Colonialisms
Cairo Studies in English (December 2024)