Anarchism and other leftist ideologies first appeared in the Southern Mediterranean countries at the end of the Nineteenth Century due to the immigration of workers and other European activists. In Egypt, anarchism first emerged in Alexandria in the Italian, Greek and Jewish communities through the establishment of newspapers, clubs and educational institutions such as L’Università Popolare Libera founded in Alexandria in 1901. Despite the important role of its members in the introduction of a radical and revolutionary political thought in Egypt, historians have not paid the necessary attention to this narrative within the framework of the decolonization and liberation struggles in Egypt. This lecture will tackle how anarchism in Egypt has been a “subaltern” narrative and a hidden voice in the literature of the history of Egypt and in the literature of the history of left in the Middle East.

Laura Galián, PhD-Researcher at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). Has obtained her Master’s Degree in Contemporary Arabic and Islamic Studies at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Before conducting her PhD, Laura has collaborated in the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in the Institute of the Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East (ILC) and in the Spanish magazine AISH -dedicated to the analysis of the Middle East- (http://aish.com.es/).