A word from our guest researcher Cedric Van Dijck
Dear friends of the NVIC,
I had just received my PhD when I arrived at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in early September to begin a new project on the colonial newspaper press. My research interests are in English literature of the early twentieth century. By most accounts, Cairo would be an unlikely place to end up. But the four months I spent at the Institute working alongside warm and welcoming colleagues have opened my eyes to a corner of the world I knew little about. A research stay at the NVIC was, for me, a crash course on the modern Middle East: I enrolled in a colloquial Arabic class, spent half a lifetime reading through its library’s extensive collection, benefited from its network of contacts at archives across the city, and attended weekly lectures, film screenings and workshops. The NVIC has a lot to offer, and a research stay there pays good dividends. Apart from exploring the holdings of the National Archives, I managed to write and submit two postdoctoral fellowship proposals during my time in Cairo.
Cedric