Edhem Eldem

Alhambra at the Crossroads of History (eBook, ePUB)

Eastern and Western Visions in the Long Nineteenth Century

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Examines the perception and reception of the Alhambra by Oriental travellers and intellectuals

• Reverses the conventional view of the Alhambra as a target of the Western gaze by studying "Oriental" visitors of the monument and proposes a multi-layered study of perceptions and interactions between multiple actors: Westerners, Spaniards, Andalusians, Arabs from the Maghreb, 'Turks', Christian and Muslim Arabs from the Mashreq
• Based on original and mostly untapped sources: the Alhambra's visitors' book; the Spanish and especially Granada-based local press; personal mementos and studio photographs of Oriental visitors; Ottoman archival sources; personal accounts and travelogues
• Attempts to treat the image of the Alhambra and the heritage of al-Andalus throughout the 'long' nineteenth century in a comprehensive and exhaustive manner, from art to literature, from architecture to history, and from international politics to ideology
• Reveals the existence of significant variations in Western perceptions of the monument and, more importantly, it shows that Oriental visions are no less heterogeneous, ranging from awkward silences to laments, and from 'Oriental Orientalism' to Arab nationalism
• De-exoticises and problematises Orientalism by revealing its multi-layered nature, especially with respect to the "Russian doll" effect observed in Spain and in the Ottoman Empire, and by carrying the debate into a wider framework by adopting a longue durée approach, spanning up to two centuries

A growing flow of visitors in the 19th century turned the Alhambra into a touristic destination and a major trope of Orientalism, created by Western authors and artists from François-René de Chateaubriand to Owen Jones and from Washington Irving to Jean-Léon Gérôme. Yet behind this Western infatuation lie scores of 'Oriental' observers of the monument, as revealed by its visitors' book, kept since 1829.This book uses this untapped source to analyse the perceptions of the Alhambra by multiple actors, including Westerners, Spaniards, Maghrebines, Ottoman Turks, Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs from the Mashreq. In doing so, it reveals the existence of significant variations in both Western and Oriental perceptions of the monument, from 'Oriental Orientalism' to Arab nationalism. Examining the contemporary press, memoirs, travelogues and photographs - as well as the visitors' book - it uses the Alhambra to build a history of the complex and entangled relations between East and West, North and South, Islam and Christianity, centre and periphery during the heyday of Orientalism and Western hegemony.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Edinburgh University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Januar 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781399524902
• Artikelnr.: 72413246

Autorenporträt

Edhem Eldem is a Professor in the Department of History of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. He has also taught at Berkeley, Harvard, EHESS, EPHE, ENS, Columbia and has held the International Chair of Turkish and Ottoman Studies at the Collège de France. Among his fields of interest are the Levant trade in the eighteenth century, Ottoman funerary epigraphy, the development of an urban bourgeoisie in Istanbul, the history of the Ottoman Bank, the history of archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, late-nineteenth-century Ottoman first-person narratives and biographies, the history of photography in the Ottoman Empire and the interaction between Westernization and Orientalism.He is the author of L'Empire ottoman (PuF, 2022), L'Alhambra. À la croisée des histoires (Belles Lettres, 2021), L'Empire ottoman et la Turquie face à l'Occident (Fayard, 2018), Camera Ottomana (Koç University, 2015), Scramble for the Past (SALT, 2011), Un Ottoman en Orient (Actes Sud, 2010), The Ottoman City between East and West (Cambridge University Press, 1999), A History of the Ottoman Bank (Ottoman Bank, 1999), French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Brill, 1999).