1st Edition
Routledge Handbook on Cairo Histories, Representations and Discourses
This Handbook simultaneously provides a single text that narrates the Cairo of yesterday and of today, and gives the reader a major reference to the best of Cairo scholarship.
Divided into three parts covering Histories, Representations and Discourses of Cairo, the chapters provide comprehensive coverage of Cairo from both a disciplinary and an interdisciplinary point of view, with scholars from a great range of disciplines. Part One contains chapters on the history of specific parts of the city to provide both a concise picture of Cairo and an appreciation for the diversity of its constituent parts and periods. Part Two of the book deals with the various forms of representations of the city, from high-end literature to popular songs, and from photographs to films. Finally, Part Three covers current discourses about the city, comprising historical reflections on the city from the present, surveys of its current condition, analysis of it serious urban problems and visions for its future.
The Routledge Handbook on Cairo provides a unique and innovative look at the ever-evolving state of Cairo. It will be a vital reference source for scholars and students of Middle Eastern Studies, Middle East History, Cultural Studies, Urban Studies, Architecture and Politics.
Part 1: Histories
1.1. Cairo: The State of a City
Nezar AlSayyad
1.2. Al-Qata’iʿ: A Lost City in Cairo – Revisited
Tarek Swelim
1.3. Cairo as a Palace: Rituals of the Fatimid Caliphate
Ayman Fouad Sayyid
1.4. Building Mamluk Cairo: The Capital of a Sultanate
Omniya Abdel Barr
1.5. Coopting the Street: The Urban Character of Mamluk Architecture in Cairo
Nasser Rabbat
1.6. 1340 Years of Cairo’s Medieval Necropolis
Galila El Kadi
1.7. Policing Cairo in the Nineteenth Century
Khaled Fahmy
1.8. Khedivial Cairo: The Genesis of the Modern City and the Prospects of its Downtown
Soheir Hawas
1.9. Tahrir Square: The Roundabout and the History of Modern Cairo
Mariam Abdelazim
Part 2: Representations
2.1. The Skylines of Cairo: A Photographic Essay
Karim Badr
2.2. The Earliest Images of Cairo’s Islamic Architecture
Doris Behrens-Abouseif
2.3. Seeing Cairo Through Paris: Nineteenth Century Literary Observations by Egyptian Intellectuals
Kinda AlSamara
2.4. Sayings and Songs: On the Intangible Culture of Cairo
Ahmed O. El-Kholei
2.5. Cairo Through Her Eyes: Space and Gender Dynamics in Naguib Mahfouz’s Bayn Al-Qasrayn
Mohammad Salama
2.6. The Judge, the Officer and the Demiurge: Figures and Figurations of Old Cairo
Ann Madoeuf
2.7. Cairo on Film: The Modernity of a Cinematic City
Nezar AlSayyad
2.8. Revolutionary Cairo: The City Still Remembers
Dina Ezzat
Part 3: Discourses
3.1. The Normalization of Hijab: Islamic Reveiling in Cairo
Sherifa Zuhur
3.2. Informal Cairo: The Making of an Urban Fabric
Ahmed M. Soliman
3.3. Cairo’s Desert Backyard: The Future of an Ever-Growing Metropolis?
David Sims
3.4. (Re)Connecting with Wounded Spaces: Encountering Memory, Place and Narrative in Cairo’s Historic Landscape
Gehan Selim
3.5. An Untold Urban Narrative: Transcending Gender, Culture and Modernity in Cairo’s Old Quarters
Mohamed Gamal Abdelmonem
3.6. Rethinking Urban Transformations in Cairo: A View From ‘Middle’ Class Housing in al-Mohandiseen
Khaled Adham
3.7. Government Visions: A Planner’s Perspective on the Remaking of Cairo
Sahar Attia
3.8. The Transformation of Public Space in Post-Revolutionary Cairo: A Diary from Tahrir, 2011-2013
Mona Abaza
Biography
Nezar AlSayyad is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Planning and Urban History at the University of California, Berkeley, where he designed and also served for two decades as Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). He is a founder and past President of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE), and Editor of Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (TDSR). Among his grants and awards are those from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Getty Center, Ford and the Graham Foundations, and a Guggenheim Distinguished Fellowship. He has authored and edited numerous books, several of which have been translated into other languages, among them Nile: Urban Histories on the Banks of a River (2019); Traditions: The Real, The Hyper, and the Virtual in the Built Environment (2014); Cairo: Histories of a City (2011); The Fundamentalist City? (2010); Cinematic Urbanism (2006); Making Cairo Medieval (2005); and Cities and Caliphs (1991).
"Any volume on Cairo is invariably an ambitious undertaking. AlSayyad’s ambition is well realized in this impressive, multi-faceted collection that does justice to the city’s rich texture of places, peoples, and pasts. It deals with a real and imagined city, in ways that foreground its ever-changing character and draw the reader into a dense mix of ancient and modern, materiality and the intangible, and the grand and the intimate. Aside from its obvious scholarship, what really stands out in this book is the passion its contributors share for Cairo."
Mike Robinson, Professor of Cultural Heritage, Nottingham Trent University
