Memory and Melancholy

The feel of a place, or its mood, is often found to be in correlation with the collective memory of the people that inhabit it. These memories that are shared amongst the people tend to be built upon individual memories and constructions of individual identity. In Orhan Pamuk’s memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City , Istanbul’s mood is described as melancholic. Leila Ahmed talks about how the Islamic Cairo she knows differs from the Islamic Cairo that is understood by the West in A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--a Woman\u27s Journey . I examine how this mood is established in Istanbul, Cairo, and around the Middle East through collective memory and identity politics of self and place