A01=Beverley Butler
Abu Qir
Alexandria Project
Alexandria University
Alexandria's Heritage
Alexandrian Coast
Alexandrian Elites
Alexandria’s Heritage
alexandrina
ancient
Ancient Alexandrina
archaeological
Archaeological Revivalism
Author_Beverley Butler
bibliotheca
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Category=GLZ
chorus
Contemporary Alexandria
critical
Critical Chorus
cultural
cultural memory studies
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
ethnographic analysis
Greco Roman Museum
heritage
heritage politics
Las Vegasisation
Melina Mercouri
Mercouri
museology research
museum memory ethnography
National Libraries
Nubian Campaigns
Pharos Lighthouse
postcolonial theory
project
Redemptive Formula
revivalism
Suzanne Mubarak
Underwater Archaeology
UNESCO Informant
UNESCO Programme
UNESCO's Paris Headquarter
UNESCO's Role
UNESCO’s Paris Headquarter
UNESCO’s Role
urban transformation Egypt
Product details
- ISBN 9781598741902
- Weight: 589g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Nov 2007
- Publisher: Left Coast Press Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was launched with great fanfare in the 1990s, a project of UNESCO and the Egyptian government to recreate the glory of the Alexandria Library and Museion of the ancient world. The project and its timing were curious—it coincided with scholarship moving away from the dominance of the western tradition; it privileged Alexandria’s Greek heritage over 1500 years of Islamic scholarship; and it established an island for the cultural elite in an urban slum. Beverley Butler’s ethnography of the project explores these contradictions, and the challenges faced by Egyptian and international scholars in overcoming them. Her critique of the underlying foundational concepts and values behind the Library is of equal importance, a nuanced postcolonial examination of memory, cultural revival, and homecoming. In this, she draws upon a wide array of thinkers: Freud, Derrida, Said, and Bernal, among others. Butler’s book will be of great value to museologists, historians, archaeologists, cultural scholars, and heritage professionals.
Dr Beverley Butler Coordinates an M.A. in Cultural Heritage Studies and lectures in Cultural Heritage Studies, Museum History and Theory, and Cultural Memory at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Her interests are alternative theorisations and reconceptualisation of cultural heritage studies; museum historiography and museological theory; and the application of intellectual history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, literary theory, postcolonial theory, deconstruction, and memory-studies to cultural heritage/museum studies.Her recent research work has focused on the application of ethnographic methods and anthropological theory to cultural heritage/museum studies; themes of cultural loss and revivalism; critical studies of the archive and cultural transmission; postcolonial politics of memory-work; reconceptualisations of cosmopolitanism and humanism within cultural heritage discourse; and cultural/human rights and marginalised histories/memory. Her special focus is on North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean and on Alexandrian/Egyptian and Palestinian cultural heritage and cultural politics.
