In this talk, Linda Herrera will probe aspects of the digital transformation of education in Egypt through analyzing the pioneering initiative, the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB). Established in 2016, the EKB is a massive online library and digital learning ecosystem available to all Egyptians (over 100 million people), free of charge. It contains 120 databases from thirty-one international publishers with materials in English, Arabic and French, and is integrated into the education system from Grade 1 through university. In some respects, the EKB represents a liberatory project that shares a genealogy with previous initiatives and movements to “free knowledge.” But the story is much more complicated. Drawing on oral history research with architects and users of the platform, combined with insights from critical technology studies, this talk attempts to strike a balance; it recognizes the opportunities and openings made possible by the EKB, while cautioning against technological solutionism, technology outsourcing, digital surveillance, and emerging forms of digital inequality that can undermine education at a time when states are racing towards digital futures.
Linda Herrera, professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a social anthropologist with longstanding interests in education and power in the Middle East and North Africa, youth and generations, and the social effects of technological change. She has worked as an education policy advisor for Egypt’s national reform. Her books include Educating Egypt (AUC Press), Revolution in the Age of Social Media (Verso), Global Middle East (co-editor, University of California Press), Wired Citizenship (Routledge), and Being Young and Muslim (co-editor, Oxford University Press).
Mina Kanlarzadeh is a historian specializing in the contemporary Middle East. As a former postdoctoral scholar at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy, she co-authored an upcoming book contracted with MIT University Press, which explores the intersection of science, technology, and politics. She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University with a dissertation titled Alienation, Translation, and Their Postcolonial Critics, situated at the crossroads of gender studies, decolonial political theory, and literary studies. Her research interests encompass gender and sexuality studies, critical theory, global political thought, Islamic studies, and translation and literary studies. Mina's academic contributions have been featured in publications such as Religions, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and Popular Music and Society. Beyond academia, her creative writing, including poetry and non-fiction, has been showcased in Arts of The Working Class, Still Dancing, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Jadaliyya.
Please note that the Berliner Seminar will take place on-site at the Forum Transregionale Studien. We kindly ask for prior registration via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de. Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.
