Return to Alexandria

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.

'Return to Alexandria is an outstanding, utterly original achievement. Beverley Butler has not merely provided the missing case-study which shows finally how 'revivalism' works. In her rare combination of reportage, theoretical discussion and often witty analysis, she also brings together almost for the first time the successive 'Western' treatments of the past with the whole discourse of post-colonial culture.' Neal Ascherson, author, journalist and editor of the journal Public Archaeology 'A tremendous piece of work. I would think it is destined to become a classic. It is a powerful analysis of the multiple conflicting forces through which culture is produced. This book establishes a new direction for museum studies.' Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, University of Leicester 'Beverley Butler's Return to Alexandria is a fine-grained analysis of what happens when the 30-year dream of reviving a beacon of universal learning becomes a reality... Return to Alexandria is an ambitious study, by a clever and extremely well-read museologist whom Neal Ascherson hails as a worthy successor to no less than Edward Said.' Antiquity

• Introduction; Chapter 1 The ‘Alexandria Project’ in the Western Imagination; Chapter 2 ‘On the Ruins’: Postcolonial Heritage Metamorphosis; Chapter 3 Contemporary Return to Alexandria: International Sacred Dramas; Chapter 4 ‘Revivalism between Worlds’: UNESCO and GOAL; Chapter 5 ‘Meltdown’: Revivalism’s ‘Time of Anxiety’; Chapter 6 ‘Spirit of Aspiration’: Archaeological Revivalism and Recuperation; Chapter 7 Urban Shock Therapy: Alexandria’s ‘Las Vegasisation’; concl Conclusion ‘Windows onto Contemporary Worlds’;