Die Reform der Stadtmänner

Urbaner Wandel und Körperpolitik in Kairo am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

English abstract: This article considers debates about the detrimental effects of urban change in late nineteenth-century Cairo in the context of a history of the body. Contrasting arguments about Cairo’s corrupting influence that surfaced in the Arabic language press with earlier debates on the transformation of the city, the author argues that the urban middle class began to see a connection between city life and the damage of the male body at the turn of the nineteenth century. As claims about Cairo’s damaging effects gave way to new bodily practices and building projects, this article views the emergence of suburbs and the spread of sports in the Egyptian capital around 1900 as interrelated to a form of body politics.