Alexandria, Real and Imagined

Alexandria, Real and Imagined offers a complex portrait of an extraordinary city, from its foundation in the fourth century BC up to the present day: a city notable for its history of ethnic diversity, for the legacies of its past imperial grandeur - Ottoman and Arab, Byzantine, Roman and Greek - and, not least, for the memorable images of 'Alexandria' constructed both by outsiders and by inhabitants of the city.In this volume of new essays, Alexandria and its many images - the real and the imagined - are illuminated from a rich variety of perspectives. These range from art history to epidemiology, from social and cultural analysis to re-readings of Cavafy and Callimachus, from the impressions of foreign visitors to the evidence of police records, from the constructions of Alexandria in Durrell and Forster to those in the twentieth-century Arabic novel.

Anthony Hirst is a Leverhulme Special Research Fellow and Head of Modern Greek in the Institute of Byzantine Studies at Queen's University Belfast Michael Silk is Professor of Greek Language and Literature at King's College in the University of London Judith Herrin is Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College in the University of London Sally-Ann Ashton is Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge James Carleton Paget is a Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Cambridge George Contis is a pediatrician and President of Medical Service Corporation International, Arlington, Virginia, USA. Giovanni Curatola is Professor of Islamic Archaeology and Art History at the University of Udine, Italy. Mostafa El-Abbadi is Professor Emeritus at Alexandria University Khaled Fahmy is Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University Anne-Marie Guimier-Sorbets is Professor of Greek Archaeology and Art History at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, France Andrew Harker is a freelance researcher based in London Azza Kararah is Professor Emerita of English Literature at Alexandria University Robert Mabro is an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford Herwig Maehler is Emeritus Professor of Papyrology at University College London Jessie Maritz teaches classics in the Department of Religious Studies, Classics and Philosophy at the University of Zimbabwe, Harare David Ricks is Head of the School of Humanities at King's College London David Roessel has lived in Greece and Cyprus, but has made only one brief visit to Alexandria Jane Rowlandson is Reader in Ancient History at King's College London Mervat Seif El-Din is General Director in the Greco-Roman Museum, Alexandria Michael Trapp is Reader in Later Greek Literature at King's College London Anne Wolff studied Egyptology and Italian at Liverpool University