The Architecture and Memory of the Minority Quarter in the Muslim Mediterranean City

Edited by Susan Gilson Miller

Edited by Mauro Bertagnin

    A collaborative work among historians, literary specialists, and architects, this collection is directed at filling the gap in our knowledge about minority neighborhoods in the southern Mediterranean.

    A series of portraits examines the minority quarters of six Mediterranean cities: Fez, Marrakesh, Trani, Tangier, Palermo, and Istanbul. Each chapter documents the architectural reminders of minority presence: the houses, churches, synagogues, shrines, legations, and other public spaces that have been abandoned or converted to other uses. Authors also examine the everyday experiences that shaped physical space, such as family life, the economy, interactions with the rest of the city, relations with state authorities, and ties with the hinterland, the region, and the wider Mediterranean world. Finally, the book considers how minority space has been exploited and refashioned as a “place of memory” in which uncomfortable visions of the past have been revised and made suitable for current use.

Susan Gilson Miller is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Director of the Moroccan Studies Program at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. She is the author of Disorienting Encounters: Travels of a Moroccan Scholar in France, 1845-1846.

Mauro Bertagnin is Professor of Technical Architecture, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Udine.