From Cairo, Jonathan focused on examining connections between cultural currents and political change across the region. He has been living and working in Egypt since 2012, where he is a contributing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, a policy journal published by the American University in Cairo. From 2012 to 2013, he was a Fulbright fellow researching political cartoons in Egypt. He previously served as a program associate for the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force in Washington, DC, and as assistant editor of Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel. A frequent analyst on Public Radio International, he has contributed to Guernica, Harper’s, Modern Painters, The New York Review Daily, The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, New York Magazine, Nieman Reports, and others. His research on Egyptian satire has been cited by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Nation, New Statesman, Reuters, and TIME, as well a variety of international news outlets. A cartoonist himself, he blogs about Arabic comics and caricature at oumcartoon.tumblr.com.
A Fire in Cairo
25 June 2016 Attaba is Cairo’s most popular bazaar. Just east of downtown, the sprawling network of alleys and squares offers thousands of stores and street sellers. It takes skill to navigate the crowds; everyone has a shopping bag—or two or three—in their hands, or on their heads, trying to edge their way through the narrow ...
Fast Times at Art Dubai
May 2, 2016 I am in a Masarati speeding toward the dinner party of an Iranian collector. A publicist invited me an hour ago. The motor hums, gently massaging my back, as the car cruises past strip malls and warehouses that could be on the outskirts of LA. At the destination, strings of white light bulbs dangle ...
2016 Excellence-in-Features Award — Jonathan Guyer
The Society for Features Journalism has recognized ICWA Fellow Jonathan Guyer as the third-place winner for General Feature in its 2016 Excellence-in-Features Awards contest. Guyer’s winning article, The Offending Art: Political Cartooning after the Charlie Hebdo Attacks, was published by Harvard’s Neiman Reports. In the piece, he explores the complexities of political cartooning after the Charlie Hebdo attacks ...
Report from Qatar: What is Art without Free Speech?
Modern Painters / BlouinArtInfo.com June/July 2016 – In a report for the global art magazine Modern Painters, Fellow Jonathan Guyer writes about why art’s biggest stars are flocking to the collecting mecca of Qatar. Guyer attended the New York Times‘ Art for Tomorrow conference in the conservative, constitutional monarchy’s capital. He interviewed Jeff Koons and Marina Abramovic, ...“Now the Writing Starts”: An Interview with Adonis
18 April 2016 Dear Edward, In January, I had the distinct honor of meeting Adonis, the Syrian poet who is perhaps the preeminent public intellectual in the Arab world. He is an innovator of the prose poem in Arabic, a literary scholar and translator, an ardent secularist, and a lightning rod. Some background: Born Ali Ahmad Said Esber ...