Last fall Bruce Ferguson, the influential former dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, took a job in Egypt – as the dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University in Cairo. Kurt Andersen talks with Ferguson about what he saw in Tahrir Square and the important role culture played in softening the ground for the revolution in Egypt.
  
Mentioned in this story: Amal Kenawy’s performance art piece (which involved Egyptians crawling across the street) stopped traffic in Cairo in 2010.