I am trying today to write a conference paper, for delivery on Friday, “On Some Paradoxes of Memorializing a Revolution in Real Time.”  (My point will be about the unintended consequences of artists’ efforts to record and re-perform, i.e., fix or reify or freeze in place, the 18 Days or any part of what has followed.) Talk about a self-describing challenge!  Every half-formed thought is overtaken by events. I have not been to Cairo since June – and so much has happened. In the symbolic sphere there have been ups and downs and more downs, reversals and revolts, appropriations and transmogrifications: impossible for me to follow in detail from afar. Who could have thought that in just six months the “spare tire” Morsi would grow into a many-tentacled octopus as widely loathed and yet accepted as the one he replaced? (On the day he gave himself trans-judicial powers I was in Boston teaching, fittingly, Saadallah Wannus’ 1977 play The King is the King.) This image from Claire Cooley’s wonderful blog – bless her for being there.

Anyway, the technical issue is this. I need to figure out how to make “Cairo” a page on this blog rather than the whole blog. Because until my next trip, I don’t have much to say about it, whereas there are other things I do that may be fun to write about, such as leading a seminar on literary translation, starting up some research on Arab-Soviet cultural exchange, and so forth. Some of these things need their own pages. For instance I just tried to import some entries from my Arab Shakespeare blog to a new page under this blog – without much success. They came up on the front page.  “Tags” or “categories” are not what I’m looking for. (Does this impulse to organize stem from some New Year’s stock-taking? Or maybe just procrastinating that MLA paper, which since it might end up as a provocatively self-undermining manifesto like “Against Performing the Arab Spring” – why even write it, then?)

This seems like a simple issue – much easier than compartmentalizing one’s different responsibilities and interests IRL. But I’m stumped. Advice on manipulating WordPress much appreciated!