Editorial

The Shandean Instructor at Minia University

You, Tristram Shandy, were amazed at the French boasting about Paris:

EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! ––– NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN AS PARIS IS !

What would first strike your mind, if you come to see how we, Egyptians, boast about our Egyptian universities, especially those in Cairo???? Would you say then “The Egyptians have a gay way of treating every thing that is Great.” Another question jumps into the writer’s train of associated ideas: When you said “gay”, did you really mean “gay” or rather its opposite “spleen”, which you, a few lines later, stressed???? Generally speaking, the meaning intended by the writer, (Which writer: the Egyptian or the English/Irish one??), is left to our readers to guess.
…………………………………………………………………………!!!!
What a gorgeous, Eden-like scene! “Is this the Minia University campus?” I asked the security officer welcoming me at the front gate, and then addressed the question to my heart. I wandered and wondered at the greenness, the squash courts, the indoor gymnasium, the swimming pool, the stadium, the indoor athletic hall, the lecture halls, the exam halls, the huge central library, the hospitals, the medical centers, the farms, the long clean roads, …………………………………………………… the embracing faces, the saluting eyes ––– eyes of gentle salutations ––– and soft responses ––– speaking ––– whispering soft ––– “like the last low accents of an expiring saint.”
I must remind the reader that this is not a dream the writer has had while sleeping; it is stark beauty and reality. Reality, the last word of the last sentence, might be the point of departure for the present concluding paragraph (as the writer wonders whether to conclude or not). With a view to change our academic reality (of course into a better one), we present this pioneer students journal to the hearts and minds of our dear readers at the English department of the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University. In an attempt to activate our minds and set a “bridge” between our curricula and our dreams of a better Egyptian university and hence a better Egyptian society, we have done our best to combine both “instruction” and “entertainment” in the following academic, creative and miscellaneous sections of our first issue on Tristram Shandy.