British Travelers and Egyptian ‘Dancing Girls:’ Locating Imperialism, Gender, and Sexuality in the Politics of Representation, 1834-1870 by Robin Bunton B.A. (Hons.), University of British Columbia, 2015 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Robin Bunton SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2017 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Robin Bunton Degree: Master of Arts (History) Title: British Travelers and Egyptian ‘Dancing Girls:’ Locating Imperialism, Gender, and Sexuality in the Politics of Representation, 1834-1870 Examining Committee: Chair: Mark Leier Professor Thomas Kuehn Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Paul Sedra Supervisor Associate Professor Evodoxios Doxiadis Supervisor Assistant Professor Azadeh Yamini-Hamedani External Examiner Associate Professor World Literature Program Simon Fraser University Date Defended/Approved: August 4th, 2017 ii Abstract This project examines representations of two categories of Egyptian female entertainers, the ‘awâlim and ghawâzî. By situating Egypt’s ‘dancing girls’ in relation to the socio- cultural context of nineteenth-century Britain, it seeks to determine how gendered dynamics of power were culturally constructed and negotiated around these women. Such an approach breaks from previous historiographical contributions to the topic of Egyptian female entertainers by considering the wider implications of imperial power, gender, and sexuality within the politics of their representation. Chapter Two analyzes the cultural significance of the 1834 banishment of the ‘awâlim and ghawâzî from Cairo, and proposes alternative historical perspectives. Chapter Three explores parallels drawn by British travelogue authors between Egypt’s female entertainers and bourgeois archetypes of masculinity and prostitution. Finally, Chapter Four contemplates the impact of Egyptian ‘dancing girls’ upon British society and interprets the typecasting of the ‘awâlim and ghawâzî as indicative of underlying insecurities relating to imperialism and desire. Keywords: ‘awâlim; ghawâzî; Egypt; Britain; imperialism; politics of representation iii I dedicate this thesis to the bright memory of Ryan Catt. (August 26th, 1992 – September 28th, 2015) You probably would have found this thesis super boring, but I still wish with all my heart that we had the chance to share a laugh about it. I miss you Ry-guy, thanks for being such an amazing friend. iv Acknowledgements This thesis project could not have been accomplished without the support of a great many people. To begin, I would like to acknowledge my senior supervisor, Thomas Kuehn, for his invaluable guidance towards the completion of my Master’s Degree. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to benefit from Dr. Kuehn’s historical expertise, and I remain especially grateful for his thought-provoking questions, his research suggestions, and his encouragement throughout. Thank you as well to Evodoxios Doxiadis - our directed reading discussions were always so interesting and greatly broadened my intellectual horizons around the complexities of gender history. I also appreciate Paul Sedra’s critical perspective, which, along with his copious weekly reading requirements, pushed me towards a more comprehensive understanding of Egyptian history. Thank you to Roxanne Panchasi whose advice and refreshing approach to historiography I value highly, and thanks to Derryl Maclean for bringing me into the fold of Middle Eastern history in the Department and including me in planning the 2017 MEICON conference. Thanks also to Paul Garfinkel, whose insights into marking and leading tutorials taught me to become a better Teaching Assistant. And, of course, many thanks to Ruth Anderson for fielding my constant questions and helping me to navigate the various bureaucratic elements of the program. Outside of the History Department, I am very fortunate to have an amazing group of people that I was able to lean on throughout my MA. I am so grateful for the enduring humour of my friends, which never failed to add much-needed levity to the whole graduate process. Many thanks to all of my extended family, especially my uncle Martin, who was always happy to chat with me and share his experiences as a historian. Thank you to Joan Macleod for attending my thesis defence, and for the celebratory lunch at the Sylvia afterwards. Thank you to my grandparents, Christa, Toni, and David for your unwavering confidence in me and genuine interest in my studies. Thanks to Pippa, the family dog, for keeping me company on rainy days. And finally, special thanks are owed to my mom, dad, and sister Claire for your endless support, guidance, and love, as well as to my partner Jake, who was always ready with encouragement, laughter, advice, and lots of take-out Indian food to help mitigate the stresses of grad school! Additional thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for awarding me such a generous scholarship, to Simon Fraser University for providing me with ample research travel funding through the GIRTA award, and to the SFU Department of History for accommodating my studies with graduate fellowships. v Table of Contents Approval…………………………………………………………………………………..ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iii Dedication………………………………………………………………………...………iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v Table of Contents………………………………………………………………...……….vi Image…………………………………………………………………………………….vii Chapter 1. Introduction………………………..………………………………………..1 Historiography…………………………………………………………………………….5 Methodology………………………………………………………………………………7 Chapter 2. Contextualization and Historiographical Reappraisal…………………..12 Female Entertainers in the Early Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Cultural Milieu……......19 Mehmed Ali Paşa and the 1834 Edict……………………………………………………25 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….35 Chapter 3. Parallels with Masculinity and Prostitution in Travelogue Representations of ‘Dancing Girls’………..…………………………………………..37 ‘Dancing Girls’ and their Problematic Performance of Gender…………………………39 Parallels Between ‘Dancing Girls’ and British Prostitution…….……………………….48 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....….63 Chapter 4. Impacting the British Metropole and the Typecasting of ‘Dancing Girls’………………………….......…………………………………………. 69 The ‘Dancing Girl’s’ Impact on Britain………………………………………………….72 The Typecasting of the ‘Dancing Girl’……………………………………...………..….83 Chapter 5. Conclusion………………….....…………………………...…………..….100 References………………………………………………………………………………105 Primary Sources………………………………………………………………………...105 Secondary Sources……………………………………………………………………...109 Appendix. Figures….…………………...………………………………………………114 vi Preface Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Dance of the Almeh, 1863 vii Chapter One: Introduction Prior to the turn of the nineteenth-century in Ottoman Egypt, there existed two distinct and long-established categories of female entertainers, the ‘awâlim (singular: ‘alma) and the ghawâzî (singular: ghazîya), respectively delineated by socioeconomic class and training. The ‘awâlim (meaning “learned women” in Arabic) initially held reputations as accomplished and cultivated vocal performers and formally trained reciters of poetry in the households of the Ottoman-Egyptian elite, while the ghawâzî (translating literally as “conqueresses”) were widely acclaimed for their public dancing on city streets, in coffee houses, or at festivals and religious mûlids.1 While the ghawâzî, also known as “the ‘awâlim of the poor,” danced unreservedly without veils in front of crowds of men and women, the ‘awâlim would perform exclusively for and among upper class women within the confines of a private home or harem.2 Eighteenth-century travelers such as Carsten Niebuhr, Claude Étienne Savary, and Richard Pococke were among the first Europeans to describe witnessing the ‘awâlim and ghawâzî; however, these two categories of female entertainers did not become a considerable point of curiosity and anthropological interest among European observers until they were encountered by the scientific and cultural experts who participated in the Napoleonic Expedition to Egypt between 1798 and 1801. These scholarly participants in the French campaign quickly established the Institut d’Égypte in Cairo, through which, in the view of the scholars who participated in this venture, a more academically sophisticated, and consequently more authoritative approach to the study of the East was developed; one that was intent on defining, confining, and gaining a monopoly over the cultural representation of Egypt.3 The publications emerging from the Institut d’Égypte, particularly those included in the monumental collaborative work Description de L’Égypte, played a critical role in exposing a romanticized rendition of Egypt to inquisitive European and North American 1 Karin Van Nieuwkerk, “A Trade Like Any Other”: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt; (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), p. 26. ‘Mûlids’ are religious holidays in celebration of Islamic holy figures. 2 Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt; (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 150. 3 Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.) p. 17. 1 audiences, ultimately inspiring an enduring