Alexandrian Cosmopolitanism: An Archive - Couverture rigide

Halim, Hala

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0823251764 ISBN 13 : 9780823251766

Editeur : Fordham University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Interrogating how Alexandria became enshrined as the exemplary cosmopolitan space in the Middle East, this book mounts a radical critique of Eurocentric conceptions of cosmopolitanism. The dominant account of Alexandrian cosmopolitanism elevates things European in the city's culture and simultaneously places things Egyptian under the sign of decline. The book goes beyond this civilization/barbarism binary to trace other modes of intercultural solidarity.

Halim presents a comparative study of literary representations, addressing poetry, fiction, guidebooks, and operettas, among other genres. She reappraises three writers--C. P. Cavafy, E. M. Forster, and Lawrence Durrell--who she maintains have been cast as the canon of Alexandria. Attending to issues of genre, gender, ethnicity, and class, she refutes the view that these writers' representations are largely congruent and uncovers a variety of positions ranging from Orientalist to anticolonial. The book then turns to Bernard de Zogheb, a virtually unpublished writer, and elicits his camp parodies of elite Levantine mores in operettas, one of which centers on Cavafy. Drawing on Arabic critical and historical texts, as well as contemporary writers' and filmmakers' engagement with the canonical triumvirate, Halim orchestrates an Egyptian dialogue with the
European representations.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Hala Halim is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Fordham University Press
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0823251764
• ISBN 13: 9780823251766
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 448
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible