Anthony T. Quickel

Medieval Egypt

Mamluk Studies

Ottoman Studies

Social and Cultural History

Environmental History

2015-

Research Fellow, Islamic Studies, CNMS, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany.

Doctoral Candidate, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, Supervisor: Prof. Albrecht Fuess; Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France, Supervisor: Prof. Nicolas Michel.

Dissertation Topic: Trends and Patterns of Book Ownership among Merchant Groups in 16th/17th Century Cairo.

2015

Master of Arts, Arabic Studies, Middle East History, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.

Thesis: From Farm to Fark: Cairo’s Food Supply and Distribution During the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517).

2008

Bachelor of Arts, International Studies, Middle East Specialization, American University, Washington, DC, USA

2016-2018

Adjunct Instructor, Middle East History, The American University in Cairo.

2011-2015

Research and Teaching Assistant, Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.

2020

“A Medieval Garden City: Mamluk Cairo’s Food Supplies and Urban Landscape,” in Living with Nature and Things: Contributions to a New Social History of the Middle Islamic Periods, ed. by Bethany J. Walker and Abdelkader Al Ghouz (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2020): 33-48.

2017

“Making Tools for Transmission: Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo’s Papermakers, Copyists, and Booksellers,” Eurasian Studies 15(2), (2017): 304-319.

2016

With Gregory Williams, “In Search of Sibākh: Digging Up Egypt from Antiquity to the Present Day,” Journal of Islamic Archeology 3(1), (2016): 89-108.

Member - Cultural Heritage Cluster, COSIMENA (Clusters of Scientific Innovation in the Middle East and North Africa) – DAAD Egypt Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Cairo, Egypt

Contributer - Working Group 3: Materiality and Mobility of Objects – TransOttomanica Project Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen – Giessen, Germany

Anthony Quickel

Trends and Patterns of Book Ownership among Merchant Groups in 16th/17th Century Cairo

Egypt during the 16th and 17th centuries was undergoing changes in its political, cultural, and economic situation as a result of the 1517 Ottoman conquest of the province. While some of these changes were dramatic, like the systemization of the legal/judicial infrastructure, others represented a continuity with the past centuries of Mamluk rule. The process of this transition is beginning to be studied, but there remains a great deal of scholarship required in order to better understand the nature of this transformation on a social and cultural level. Until now, the vast majority of research regarding Ottoman Egypt is situated in the 18th century, yet the early period both laid the foundation for and set the course for the changes yet to come. This dissertation looks at the ways in which Egypt was changing during the early period with regards to its cultural and intellectual output, especially in terms of material book production. The dissertation explores the nature of these transformations within society broadly but with an eye towards the patterns and trends in book production and ownership in Cairo at the turn of the 17th century.