Making Cairo Medieval

by AlSayyad, Nezar; Bierman, Irene A.; Rabbat, Nasser; Ahmed, Heba Farouk; Fahmy, Khaled; Gregory, Derek; Hampikian, Nairy; al-Ibrashy, May; Preziosi, Donald; Williams, Caroline

• ISBN13: 9780739109151
• ISBN10: 0739109154
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-25
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

During the nineteenth century, Cairo witnessed one of its most dramatic periods of transformation. Well on its way to becoming a modern and cosmopolitan city, by the end of the century, a medieval Cairo had somehow come into being. While many Europeans in the nineteenth century viewed Cairo as a fundamentally dual city--physically and psychically split between East/West and modern/medieval--the contributors to the provocative collection demonstrate that, in fact, this process of inscription was the result of restoration practices, museology, and tourism initiated by colonial occupiers. The first edited volume to address nineteenth-century Cairo both in terms of its history and the perception of its achievements, this book will be an essential text for courses in architectural and art history dealing with the Islamic world.

Table of Contents

1. Prologue: The Project of Making Cairo Medieval	1	(8)
Nezar AlSayyad, Irene A. Bierman, Nasser Rabbat
PART I: A MEDIEVAL CITY FORA MODERN WORLD
2. Disciplining the Eye: Perceiving Medieval Cairo	9	(20)
Irene A. Bierman
3. The Medieval Link: Maqrizi's Khitat and Modern Narratives of Cairo	29	(20)
Nasser Rabbat
4. Ali Mubarak's Cairo: Between the Testimony of Alamuddin and the Imaginary of the Khitat	49	(20)
Nezar AlSayyad
PART II: REPRESENTING AND NARRATING
5. Performing Cairo: Orientalism and the City of the Arabian Nights	69	(26)
Derek Gregory
6. Nineteenth-Century Images of Cairo: From the Real to the Interpretative	95	(30)
Caroline Williams
7 The Museum of What You Shall Have Been	125	(18)
Donald Preziosi
PART III: DISCIPLINING AND MAKING
8. Nineteenth-Century Cairo: A Dual City?	143	(30)
Heba Farouk Ahmed
9. Modernizing Cairo: A Revisionist Narrative	173	(28)
Khaled Fahmy
10. Medievalization of the Old City as an Ingredient of Cairo's Modernization: Case Study of Bab Zuwayla	201	(34)
Nairy Hampikian
11. The Cemeteries of Cairo and the Comité de Conservation	235	(22)
May al-Ibrashy
Selected Bibliography	257	(4)
Index	261	(4)
Contributors	265