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

CMES Associate Susan G. Miller is co-editor of a new book published by the Aga Khan Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). Contributors to the volume include William Granara, Professor of the Practice of Arabic at CMES, and CMES graduates Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, Karen Leal, and Emily Gottreich.

Entitled “The Architecture and Memory of the Minority Quarter in the Muslim Mediterranean City,” the book contains 50 color photographs and illustrations and is available from Harvard University Press (HUP). From the GSD and HUP websites:

"A collaborative work among historians, literary specialists, and architects, [the book] 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 G. Miller is currently an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. From 1991 to 2008 Dr. Miller served in a variety of capacities at Harvard, including CMES Associate Director, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Director of the CMES Moroccan Studies Program.