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This book investigates the history of Arabian sūqs from their pre-Islamic beginnings to the present. Collecting evidence from archaeological ruins, Islamic towns, modern cities, Arabic poetry, philosophical debates, political conflicts, puppet shows and the insights of modern-day market-goers, the book presents new and unforeseen interpretations of the Arabian sūq’s meaning and its transformation through time and place. The finding that such meaning is tied to ancient trade rituals, where temple and market presented a holistic socio-urban unit, re-questions some instrumental assumptions regarding the value of sūq-ness in Arabia’s everyday practices. Such a finding, which locates the fadaā/tareeq duality as a central theme in Arabia’s socio-urban discourse, emphasizes the importance of lived experiences and poetics as key sources for understanding socio-urban phenomena.
Though now remembered as an act of anti-colonial protest leading to the Egyptian military coup of 1952, the Cairo Fire that burned through downtown stores and businesses appeared to many at the time as an act of urban self-destruction and national suicide. The logic behind this latter view has now been largely lost. Offering a revised history, Nancy Reynolds looks to the decades leading up to the fire to show that the lines between foreign and native in city space and commercial merchandise were never so starkly drawn. Consumer goods occupied an uneasy place on anti-colonial agendas for decades in Egypt before the great Cairo Fire. Nationalist leaders frequently railed against commerce as a form of colonial captivity, yet simultaneously expanded local production and consumption to anchor a newly independent economy. Close examination of struggles over dress and shopping reveals that nationhood coalesced informally from the conflicts and collaboration of consumers "from below" as well as more institutional and prescriptive mandates.
This volume brings together the proceedings of the conference “From past experience to new approaches and synergies: The future of protection management for archaeological heritage in times of economic crisis”, held in the new Acropolis Museum in Athens in 2012. The conference was organised by the Hellenic National Committee of the International Scientific Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Scientific Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM) ,with the participation of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), ...
“A rich-tapestry celebration of [Court’s] meanderings—from Japan to Italy, Syria to Mexico and India . . . Essential for anyone who adores travel.” —Australian Women Online In this deluxe guide, celebrated designer Sibella Court travels the world in search of eclectic inspiration. She explores far-flung destinations and captures the essence of each in small details, exotic color palettes, exquisite textures, and traditional crafts. Along the way, she shows readers how to incorporate these elements into interiors and how to replicate the ideas in their own spaces. Overflowing with imaginative ideas from across the globe with breathtaking photos of each destination accompanied by exa...
Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own familyÕs history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routesÑthe Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)ÑNabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering gro...
The Middle Eastern bazaar is much more than a context for commerce: the studies in this book illustrate that markets, regardless of their location, scale, and permanency, have also played important cultural roles within their societies, reflecting historical evolution, industrial development, social and political conditions, urban morphology, and architectural functions. This interdisciplinary volume explores the dynamics of the bazaar with a number of case studies from Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Nablus, Bursa, Istanbul, Sana'a, Kabul, Tehran, and Yazd. Although they share some contextual and functional characteristics, each bazaar has its own unique and fascinating history, traditions, cultural practices, and structure. One of the most intriguing aspects revealed in this volume is the thread of continuity from past to present exhibited by the bazaar as a forum where a society meets and intermingles in the practice of goods exchange-a social and cultural ritual that is as old as human history.
The papers collected in this volume discuss the sensory dimension of cityscapes, with focus on touch and smell. Both have been traditionally considered "lower senses" and thus unworthy of being cultivated - objects of social prohibitions and targets of suppressing strategies in modern architecture and city planning. The book brings together approaches from anthropology, aesthetics, the theory of architecture, art and design research, psychophysiology, ethology, analytic chemistry, etc. (Series: Austria: Forschung und Wissenschaft - Interdisziplinar - Vol. 4)
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Though he died in the last decade of the twentieth century, the satirist, social thinker, memoirist, and dramatist Elias Canetti lives on into the present. Testifying to the author’s undeniable cultural “afterlife,” the essays gathered together here represent a wide swath of the latest Canetti scholarship. Contributors examine Canetti’s Jewish identity; the Marxist politics of his youth; his influence on writers as diverse as Bachmann, Jelinek, and Sebald; the undiscovered “poetry” of his literary testament (Nachlass); his status as a self-cancelling satirist; and his complex and sometimes ambivalent citation of Chinese and French cultural icons. In addition, this volume presents...