In continuation of WMF work of uncovering the cultural role played by women in the making of Arab history despite their marginalization in the official national memory, the WMF held a commemorative conference on Nabawiya Moosa as an example of an Egyptian pioneer woman who played a significant role in modern Egyptian history and in the field of education, and whose name – like others – disappeared from the nation’s memory. Nabawiya Moosa is the first Egyptian girl to obtain a high school certificate in 1907, and the first woman to make of the education of girls a national cause.

Papers dealing with a variety of subjects and methodologies were presented, shedding light on Nabawiya and her achievements in the general context of the Egyptian political and cultural scene at the time.

Several papers linked the beginnings of this century to its close, referring to various cultural and social issues, some of which have been resolved and others are still being debated until now. New methodologies and approaches were suggested to deal with some of these persistent problems.

The conference revolved around three main intersecting themes: women, education, and work. WMF re-published Nabawiya Moosa’s autobiographical work, My Own History, a valuable and “rare” publication, since it is one of the very few autobiographies left to us by pioneer Egyptian women in modern times. It is also “rare” on account of the few surviving copies in Egyptian libraries. This conference was indeed an opportunity for WMF to issue a reprint of this work in a new form, as a preservation of “women’s own history” and their words against marginalization and oblivion. The proceedings of the conference are in progress to be published in a forthcoming volume.