Event Details

The CWD Work in Progress Seminar is a forum for researchers at Lancaster to discuss their work. All are welcome to attend.

The 1973 Arab-Israeli War occupies a powerful place in public memory of many people in the Middle East. Although its military outcome remains contested, successive Egyptian regimes have constructed and reconstructed the war as a massive and unquestioned national victory. This talk explores how that narrative was produced through state propaganda, political language, religion, mythology, media and commemoration, and how the meaning of the war has continued to evolve under successive presidents and how it is being instrumentalized as legitimating force. More broadly, it asks how states shape collective memory and turn contested historical events into seemingly settled national truths.

Dr Mustafa Menshawy is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Lancaster University. His publications include two books and around 20 articles on authoritarianism, political discourse, memory, and Middle East politics. His current research examines the political roles of leaders’ wives in authoritarian states, with a forthcoming book on the subject to be published by Manchester University Press in 2027.