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A history of urban modernity in Cairo through cinema which "makes us see makes us see the movies in a whole new way" (Chris Berry, King’s College London)
The relationship between the city and cinema is formidable. The images and sounds of the city found in movies are perhaps the only experience that many people will have of cities they may never visit. Films influence the way we construct images of the world, and accordingly, in many instances, how we operate within it. Cinematic Cairo: Egyptian Urban Modernity from Reel to Real offers a history of Cairo’s urban modernity using film as the primary source of exploration, and cinematic space as both an analytical tool and a medium of critique. Cairo has provided rich subject material for Egypt’s film industry since the inception of the art form at the end of the nineteenth century. The “reel” city—imagined, perceived, and experienced—provides the spatial domain that mirrors change and allows for an interrogation of the “real” city as it encountered modernity over the course of a century.
Bringing together chapters by architects and art and literary historians, this volume explores this parallel and convergent relationship through two sections. The first uses films from the 1930s to the end of the twentieth century to illustrate the development of a modern Cairo and its modern subjects. The second section is focused on tracing the transformation of the cinematic city under conditions of neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism, and gender tensions. The result is a comprehensive narrative of the urban modernity of one of the most important cities in the Arab world and Global South.
Contributors
Ahmed H. AbdelAzim, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Khaled Adham, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany
Kinda AlSamara, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Doaa Al Amir, October 6th University, Cairo, Egypt
Mirette Aziz, Misr International University, Egypt
Muhammad Emad Feteha, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Farah Gendy, Raef Fahmi Architects, Cairo, Egypt
Hala A. Hassanien, Architect, Wasl, Cairo, Egypt
Tayseer Khairy, Arab Academy for Science Technology & Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt
Mariam Marei, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Ameer Saad, Architect, Dar Al-Handasa, Cairo, Egypt
Heba Safey Eldeen, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
Mohammad Salama, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, USA
Nour Sobhi, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
Sherin Soliman, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
"[A] detailed and unique contribution to the field of Egyptian cinema studies."—Samirah Alkassim, Review of Middle East Studies
“Instead of telling a simple story of the emergence and development of an urban modernity over the span of a century, the chapters in Cinematic Cairo raise important questions about the spatial and temporal histories of a city whose collective hopes for envisioning modernity according to the notion of the socio-spatial solidarity of hara have been incessant, despite the rise of urban degradation in the postmodern socio-spatial heterogeneity and rivalry of the 1980s. Cinematic Cairo is an invaluable scholarly and pedagogical read.”—Fakhri Haghani, Anthropology of the Middle East
"This survey of a century's worth of urban interpretations of Cairo through the lenses of Egyptian filmmakers proves once again the importance of literary and cinematic narrative for a true understanding of any city. Cairo has long had one of the oldest and most vibrant film industries in the world and emerges here as a fascinating locale for the genesis of a more complex, multi-layered modernity, as its films tackle social, urban, economic, and religious tensions and transformations.—Dietrich Neumann, Brown University
“The analysis of Egyptian films in this glittering collection of lively essays not only animates over a century of tumultuous social and urban topographical changes in Cairo, but also makes us see the movies in a whole new way. Through the melodrama, phenomena such as changes in gender roles, the mixing or separation of different religious communities, and the cultural role of the coffee house are illuminated, enriching our understanding of Africa’s greatest city and the center of the Arab film world. This volume is a significant addition to the burgeoning literature on cinema and the city.”—Chris Berry, King’s College London
"Through multiple methodologies and cinematic genres, the contributors to this volume erode boundaries between reel and real city, tracing the transformations of both under neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism and class and gender tensions, from the mid twentieth century to the first two decades of the twenty first. This is an important contribution, not just to the interdisciplinary literature on Cairo, but to the reading and representation of cities at large."—Samia Mehrez, The American University in Cairo
“Carefully dissect[s] the complex relationship between Cairo, the cinematic version of the city, and the Cairo that falls between the real and the reel.”—Al-Ahram Weekly
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Cinematic Cairo and the Discourse on Egyptian Urban Modernity: A Prologue, Nezar AlSayyad
PART I: Cinematic Cairo, 1930 to the Present
Chapter 1: Bourgeois Cairo, 1930: Cinematic Representations of Modernity of Place in the Middle-Class City,
Ameer Abdurrahman Saad
Chapter 2: Naguib Mahfouz’s Cinematic Cairo: Depictions of Urban Transformation in Twentieth Century Egypt, Nezar AlSayyad and Mohammad Salama
Chapter 3: Bridge as Border and Connector: Class and Social Relations in Cinematic Cairo, 1940-1950,
Nezar AlSayyad and Doaa Al Amir
Chapter 4: Cinematic Cairo of the United Arab Republic, 1958- 1962, Kinda AlSamara
Chapter5: Kafkaesque Modernity: Cairo in the 1980s and the Middle-Class Housing Crisis, Ahmed H. AbdelAzim
Chapter 6: Escaping Cairo: Bureaucratic Modernity in the Cinematic Portrayal of the City in the 1980s,
Tayseer Khairy
Chapter 7: Cairo Beyond the Windshield: From Modernity of Realism to Surrealistic Postmodernity, 1980s-1990s, Mariam S. Marei
PART II: Themes in the Transformation of Cinematic Cairo
Chapter 8: Transformations in the Cinematic Space of a Cairo Suburb in the Late-Twentieth-Century, Farah Gendy
Chapter 9: From Hara to Imara: Social Transformations in Cinematic Cairo, Mirette Aziz
Chapter 10: Cairo’s Cinematic Coffeehouses: Modernity, Urbanity and the Changing Image of an Institution,
Khaled Adham
Chapter 11: Gendered Modernity: On the Changing Role of Women in Modern Cinematic Cairo, 1950s-2000s,
Nour Adel Sobhi
Chapter 12: Religious Tolerance in the Cairo of the Movies,1950s-2000s, Hala A. Hassanien
Chapter 13: The City of a Thousand Minarets and a Million Satellite Dishes: The Dilemma of Islam and Modernity in Cinematic Cairo, Muhammad E. Feteha
Chapter 14: Women’s Right to the City: Cinematic Representation of Cairene Urban Poverty, Heba Safey Eldeen and Sherien Soliman