Amina Taher El-Lozy Oral History

Amina Taher El-Lozy was a faculty member teaching English language and writing at the American University in Cairo from 1972 to 1992, and had attended AUC as an undergraduate (alumna of 1967) and in the Teaching English as a Foreign Language Master’s degree program (1972). She provides a view of her upbringing in Cairo's Maadi neighborhood within a well-to-do family, her education in British schools, and aspects of life during World War II (and later conflicts). Amina recalls her courtship and marriage to her cousin Ahmed El-Lozy, and his background and career in the family silk factory. She recounts how her family and their elite social circles perceived and were affected by the 1952 revolution and later the nationalization of private property, facing financial setbacks as her husband’s silk factory was sequestrated and he was the subject of government surveillance and placed on lists of enemies of the state. Amina El-Lozy recalls coming to attend AUC in 1962 as an undergraduate at the age of 32 while married and with children, telling about other older female classmates like her, studying English Literature with faculty like Doris Shoukri and John Rodenbeck, her participation in theater performances, and the leading literary figures who came as distinguished visiting professors. After graduation El-Lozy worked in the AUC President’s Office, and she tells of how the 1967 war and Egyptian government sequestration under Dr. Hussein Said affected the university. She speaks of how her work and friendship with President Thomas Bartlett (whose family she describes) contributed to her husband Ahmed El-Lozy becoming AUC’s Business Manager, and mentions Ahmed's accomplishments in that position. In the early 1970s she studied in the Teaching English as a Foreign Language Master’s program, and she describes her teaching career at AUC in its English Language Institute and later the Freshman Writing Program, offering commentary on colleagues and AUC students through the years. She mentions her son Mahmoud El-Lozy’s time as a student at AUC and his later joining the university as a theater professor. She also tells about changes in the Zamalek neighborhood, where she lived, over time