Alia Mossallam is a cultural historian, educator and writer with a focus on narratives that shed light on the popular struggles underlying major historical events. Her current project builds on her research into the physical and political journeys of Egyptian and North African laborers on various World War I fronts by exploring the songs and memoirs that recount these often-overlooked struggles. Alia is deeply committed to using site-specific history workshops as tools for community building and collaborative knowledge production. She founded the Ihky ya Tarikh history workshops and has been actively experimenting with critical and artistic approaches to historical research in both Egyptian and German academic and community settings.