The rhetoric of nostalgia: Postcolonial Alexandria between uncanny memories and global geographies

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 207-238

  Dora, Veronica Della ^a  

^a GETTY CONSERVATION INSTITUTE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CENTRAL PLACE THEORY; CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY; GLOBALIZATION; POST-COLONIALISM;

AFRICA; ALEXANDRIA [EGYPT]; EGYPT; NORTH AFRICA;

EID: 33747225546     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/1474474006eu357oa     Document Type: Article

References (190)

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2. S. Boym, The future of nostalgia (NY, Basic Books, 2001), p. 123.
3. See E. Forster, Alexandria: a history and a guide (NY, Overlook Press, 1974).
4. C. Jacob, 'Mapping in the mind: the Earth from ancient Alexandria', in D. Cosgrove, ed., Mappings (London, Reaktion, 1999), p. 30.
5. E. Parsons, The Alexandrian library (London, Cleaver-Hume Press, 1952), p. 57.
6. A. Stille, 'Resurrecting Alexandria', New Yorker (8 May 2000), p. 92.
7. L. Durrell, Justine (London, Penguins, 1956), p. 14.
8. D. Cosgrove, 'The myth and the stones of Venice: an historical geography of a symbolic place', Journal of historical geography 8 (1992), p. 162.
9. Stille, 'Alexandria', p. 92.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 94.
12. P.J. Vatikiotis, Islam and State (London, Routledge, 1987).
13. E. Said, Orientalism (New York, Vintage Books, 1979).
14. D. Gregory, 'Between the book and the lamp: imaginative geographies of Egypt, 1849-50', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20 (1995), p. 35.
15. T. Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988).
16. E.g. see Gregory, 'Imaginative geographies of Egypt'.
17. Ibid., p. 49.
18. Flaubert, quoted in ibid., p. 43.
19. See Mitchell, Colonising Egypt.
20. Aciman, False papers, p. 4.
21. A. Blunt, 'Collective memory and productive nostalgia: Anglo-Indian homemaking at McCluskieganj', Society and space 23, (2003), p. 719.
22. J. Starobinski, 'The idea of nostalgia', Diogenes 54, (1966), pp. 81-103;
23. see also D. Lowenthal, 'Past time, present place: landscape and memory', Geographical review 65, (1975), pp. 1-36.
24. H. Liddell and R. Scott. Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996).
25. Boym, Nostalgia, p. 41.
26. M. Crang and P. Travlou, 'The city and topologies of memory', Society and space 19, (2001), p. 161.
27. J. Allen, 'City environments: juxtapositions of feeling', in D. Massey et al., eds, City worlds (London, Routledge in association with the Open University, 1999), p. 80.
28. F. Davis, Yearning for yesterday (London, Collier Macmillan, 1979), p. 29.
29. A. Blunt, 'Mapping authorship and authority: reading Mary Kingsley's landscape descriptions', in A. Blunt and G. Rose, eds, Writing women and space: colonial and postcolonial geographies (New York, Guildford Press, 1994), p. 61.
30. Davis, Yearning, p. 122.
31. Ibid., p. 92.
32. See T. Barnes and J. Duncan, eds, Writing worlds: discourse, text and metaphor in the representation of landscape (London, Routledge, 1992), p. 9.
33. See N. Royle, The uncanny (London, Routledge, 2003), p. 87.
34. D. Lowenthal, 'Past time, present place: landscape and memory', Geographical review 65, (1975), pp. 1-36.
35. For a review essay reflecting more recent interest see S. Legg, 'Memory and nostalgia', Cultural geographies, 11 (2004), pp. 99-107.
36. See D. Pinder, 'Ghostly footsteps: voices, memories and walks in the city', Ecumene 8, (2001), pp. 1-15;
37. Pile, 'Perpetual returns: vampires and the ever-colonized city', in R. Bishop et al., eds, Postcolonial urbanism: Southeast Asian cities and global processes (London, Routledge, 2003);
38. D. DeLyser, 'When less is more: absence and landscape in a California ghost town', in P. Adams et al., eds, Textures of place (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
39. K. Gelder and J. Jacobs, 'Uncanny Australia', Ecumene 2, (1992), pp. 171-183.
40. Ibid., p. 171 (emphasis original).
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., p. 172.
43. See Starobinski, 'Nostalgia', pp. 88-89.
44. Boym, Future of nostalgia, pp. xiii, xiv.
45. Ibid., p. xviii.
46. Starobinski, 'Nostalgia', p. 93.
47. Ibid.
48. W. Spanos, America's shadow (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 2000), pp. 18, 19.
49. S. Pile and N. Thrift, eds City A-Z (London, Routledge, 2000), p. xix.
50. B. Pike, The image of the city in modern literature (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981), p. x.
51. See DeLyser, 'Absence and landscape'.
52. See, for instance, K. Foote, Shadowed ground: America's landscapes of violence (Houston, University of Texas Press, 1997);
53. N. Johnson, 'Cast in stone: monuments, geography, and nationalism', in J. Agnew, ed., Political geography a reader (London, Routledge, 1997);
54. M. Richardson, 'The gift of presence: the act of leaving artefacts at shrines, memorials, and other tragedies', in P. Adams et al., eds, Textures of place (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2001);
55. D. Atkinson and D. Cosgrove, 'Urban rhetoric and embodied identities: city, nation, and empire at the Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Rome, 1870-1945', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, (1998), pp. 28-49;
56. S. Cooke, 'Negotiating memory and identity: the Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial, London', Journal of historical geography 26, (2000);
57. J. Leib, 'Separate times, shared spaces: Arthur Ashe, Monument Avenue and the politics of Richmond, Virginia's symbolic landscape', Cultural geographies 9, (2002), pp. 286-312;
58. B. Ladd, The ghosts of Berlin: confronting German history in the urban landscape (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997);
59. K.E. Till, 'Staging the past: landscape designs, cultural identity and Erinnerungspolitik of Berlin's Neue Wache', Ecumene 6, (1999), pp. 251-283.
60. Crang and Travlou, 'Topologies of memory'.
61. G. Dolff-Bonekamper, 'Sites of hurtful memory', Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter 17, (2002), p. 4.
62. A. Vidler, The architectural uncanny (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1994), pp. 178-79.
63. Ibid., p. 23.
64. Ibid., p. 14.
65. Boym, Nostalgia, p. 58.
66. Ibid., p. 95.
67. See T. Todorov, The imperfect garden: the legacy of humanism (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2003).
68. Gelder and Jacobs, 'Australia'.
69. K. Gelder, ed., The horror reader (London, Routledge, 2000), p. 3.
70. Royle, Uncanny, p. 6.
71. Davis, Yearning, p. 110.
72. Ibid., p. 43.
73. B. Anderson, Imagined communities (London, Verso, 1983).
74. Davis, Yearning, p. 122.
75. G. Montefoschi, 'Alessandria non abita più qui', Sette (July 1999), p. 155. (Author's translation.)
76. H. Tzalas, Alexandrea ad Aegyptum: endeka Alexandrina diegemata (Athenai, Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Prwtou, 1997), pp. 30-31. (Author's translation.)
77. This treaty recognized Egypt's 'independence' with some reserve: a 20-year military alliance with England, and the evacuation of British forces except from the canal zone.
78. I. Lapidus, A history of Islamic societies, vol. III (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) p. 83.
79. Tzalas, Alexandrea, pp. 209-210.
80. A. Aciman, Out of Egypt (London, Harvill Press, 1996), p. 164.
81. Ibid., p. 144.
82. Y.F. Tuan, Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes and values (Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall, 1974), p. 4.
83. Tzalas, Alexandrea, p. 323.
84. Ibid., pp. 27, 31.
85. Ibid., pp. 322, 323.
86. J. Aldridge, Cairo (Boston, Little, Brown, 1969), p. 258.
87. Tzalas, Alexandrea, pp. 217-218.
88. Aciman, False papers, p. 39.
89. Aldridge, Cairo, p. 257.
90. F. Lando, Fatto e finzione: geografia e letteratura (Milano, Etaslibri, 1993), p. 11.
91. Y.F. Tuan, Passing the strange and the beautiful (New York, Island Press, 1993), p. 114.
92. Aciman, Egypt, p. 71.
93. Aldridge, Cairo, p. 258.
94. Tzalas, Alexandrea, p. 325.
95. Constantine Cavafy, or Kostantinos Kavafis (1863-1933).
96. Tzalas, Alexandrea, pp. 326-327.
97. A. Aciman, 'Arbitrage', New Yorker (10 July 2000), p. 38.
98. Boym, Nostalgia, p. 52.
99. Davis, Yearning, pp. 18, 25.
100. Aciman, 'Arbitrage', p. 37.
101. Ibid., p. 38.
102. M. Goldrup, 'Looking for Alexandria', Business monthly (Mar. 1998), p. 1.
103. See Cosgrove, 'Venice'.
104. D. Meredith, Where tigers were: travels through literary landscapes (Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 2001).
105. Montefoschi, Alessandria.
106. Aciman, 'Arbitrage'.
107. Meredith, Literary landscapes, pp. 21-22.
108. Ibid., p. 23.
109. Ibid.
110. Montefoschi, 'Alessandria', p. 153.
111. Ibid., p. 155.
112. Tzalas, Alexandrea, p. 219.
113. W. Norton, Cultural geography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 329.
114. Tzalas, Alexandrea, p. 219.
115. Ibid., p. 221.
116. Aciman, 'Arbitrage', p. 39.
117. D. Cosgrove and L. Martins, 'Millennial geographics', in C. Minca, ed., Postmodern geographies: theory and praxis (Oxford, Blackwell, 2001).
118. Meredith, Literary landscapes, pp. 27-28.
119. Montefoschi, 'Alessandria', p. 156.
120. Aciman, 'Arbitrage', pp. 36-37.
121. Richardson, 'Gift of presence', p. 266.
122. Ibid., p. 263.
123. B. Knapp and W. Ashmore, Archaeologies of landscape (Oxford, Blackwell, 1999), p. 13.
124. P. Nora, Les lieux de mémoire (Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1997).
125. Montefoschi, 'Alessandria', p. 153.
126. Norton, Cultural geography;
127. see also J.B. Harley, 'Cartography, ethics and social theory', Cartographica 27, (1990), pp. 1-23.
128. Foote, Landscapes of violence.
129. L. Lababidi, Cairo, the family guide (Cairo, American University of Cairo Press, 2001), p. 17.
130. Meredith, Literary landscapes, p. 23.
131. Goldrup, 'Alexandria', p. 4.
132. www.alexandria2000.com/html/assort/modern.html.
133. Tzalas, Alexandrea, pp. 222-23.
134. DeLyser, 'Absence and landscape', p. 27.
135. Ibid., p. 28.
136. Aciman, Egypt, p. 175.
137. Vidler, Architectural uncanny, p. 41.
138. Ibid., p. 64.
139. Ibid., p. 65.
140. Stille, 'Alexandria', p. 92.
141. Meredith, Literary landscapes, p. 21.
142. DeLyser, 'Absence and landscape', p. 24.
143. M. Purcell, 'A place for the Copts: imagined territory and spatial conflict in Egypt', Ecumene 5, (1998), p. 438.
144. See Vatikiotis, Islam.
145. Purcell, 'Copts', p. 438.
146. Stille, 'Alexandria', p. 98.
147. Foote, Landscapes of violence.
148. Stille, 'Alexandria', p. 92.
149. Al-Ahram (21-27 Dec. 2000).
150. Aswan Declaration (12 Feb. 1990).
151. Al-Ahram Weekly On-line (3-9 May 2001; emphasis added).
152. Boym, Nostalgia, p. 53.
153. E.g. Stille, 'Alexandria'.
154. Ibid., p. 92.
155. ibid., p. 99.
156. Boym, p. 49.
157. http://library.thinkquest.org/c0111760/corniche.htm
158. Boym, Nostalgia, p. 45.
159. J. Busquets, 'Redisigning the waterfront', in V. Hastaglou-Martinides, Restructuring the city: international urban design competitions for Thessalonike (Kiblees Farm, Windsor Forest Berks, Andreas Papadakis, 1997), p. 21.
160. R. Beauregard and A. Haila, 'The unavoidable continuities of the city', in P. Marcuse and R. van Kempen, eds, Globalizing cities (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000), pp. 26-27.
161. Quoted in Lowenthal, 'Landscape and memory', p. 3.
162. J. Goss, 'The magic of the mall: an analysis of form, function, and meaning in the contemporary retail built environment', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89, (1993), p. 37.
163. P. Matvejevic, Breviario mediterraneo (Milan, Garzanti, 1999), p. 51.
164. Meredith, Literary landscapes, p. 19.
165. H. Gabr, 'Historic revitalisation as a tool for tourist attraction: El-Salamlek Palace Hotel in Alexandria, Egypt', Traditional dwelling and settlements: working papers 117, (1998), p. 25.
166. Ibid., p. 29.
167. Lowenthal, 'Landscape and memory', p. 26.
168. The reconstruction of the library has been presented by the media as a moral issue. Going through the dozens of articles that appeared during the construction of the library, one tends to believe that the Bibliotheca had always been 'out there'; it only needed to be 'revived', to be brought back to light. The narrative and the rhetoric used in this issue would be more appropriate for the rescue of some endangered ancient remain, rather than for a total reconstruction of something we do not even know the shape of. Ironically enough, according to archaeologist Empereur, it seems that 'unfortunately, the Egyptians have no concept of salvage archaeology... Egyptian authorities will call for excavation only when it is obvious that a major archaeological site is being damaged' (Stille, 'Alexandria', p. 99). Thus, the second-century B.C. Greek mosaic floors discovered by the French archaeologist in the site of the library during its very construction have not given to any enthusiasm in Egyptian project leaders (and executors). On the contrary, possible excavations have been seen as a potential obstacle for the construction of the new library, and 'now, ironically, the new library may be burying the ancient library once and for all' (Ibid.). In other words, it seems that the 'aura' produced by the myth of something that does not exist anymore (the ancient library), its only 'inherited' memory is more powerful (and worthy) than its tangible and valuable remains.
169. D. Cosgrove, Return to Delphi: heritage, cultures and politics (London, Eleni Nakou Foundation, 2000), p. 5.
170. Gabr, 'El-Salamlek Palace', p. 25.
171. I.P.O., Vocabolario arabo-italiano (Rome, Istituto per l'Oriente, 1993).
172. DeLyser, 'Absence and landscape', p. 29.
173. Ibid., p. 29.
174. For a definition of 'world city', see D. Clark, Urban world/global city (London, Routledge, 1996), p. 137;
175. see also R. Bishop et al., 'Perpetuating cities: excepting globalization and the Southeast Asia complement', in Bishop et al., Postcolonial urbanism.
176. G. Debord, The society of spectacle (New York, Zone Books, 1995).
177. G. Dematteis, 'Shifting cities', in Minca, Postmodern geographies.
178. J. Jacobs, Edge of empire: postcolonialism and the city (London, Routledge, 1996), p. 21.
179. Allen, 'City environments', p. 74.
180. W.W. Yeo, 'City as theatre: Singapore, state of distraction', in Bishop et al., Postcolonial urbanism.
181. Jacobs, Empire, p. 160.
182. Mitchell, Egypt;
183. E. Reisz, 'City as a garden: shared space in the urban botanic gardens of Singapore and Malaysia, 1786-2000' in Bishop et al., Postcolonial urbanism.
184. Jacobs, Empire, p. 20.
185. Ladd, Berlin, p. 60.
186. Jacobs, Empire, p. 5.
187. See A. Huyssen, Twilight memories: marking time in a culture of amnesia (London, Routledge, 1995).
188. Blunt, 'Collective memory', p. 717.
189. Jacobs and Gelder, 'Australia', p. 193.
190. Tzalas, Alexandrea.