Ta'seel Commons
  • Home
  • About
  • Politics
    • Innovations in Contemporary Islamic Governance
  • Theory/Practice
  • Philosophy
  • Podcasts
  • Technology
  • Arts/Culture
  • Sexuality
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

PolitIcs

"introduction" to Muslims in the western imagination

8/30/2017

1 Comment

 
Dr. Sophia Arjana
Assistant Professor
Western Kentucky University

Picture
Picture

​This book asks the critical question, how did we get here, to this place of hijab bans and outlawed minarets, secret renditions of enemy combatants, Abu Ghraib, and GTMO? It is not simply a result of September 11, 2001, Madrid 2004, or London 2005, nor a culmination  of events of the past decade or the past century. Terrorist attacks, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increased movement of Muslim immigrants into north­ern and western Europe, and the visibility of Islam, in general have contributed to a voicing of "the Muslim problem." However, these concerns represent old anxieties that lie within a multiplicity of times and spaces on the pages of manuscripts and canvases of paintings, in works of great drama, poetry, and fiction, within travel diaries and government documents, and on the screens of movie theaters. To find the answer to the question posed here, we must look at numerous fields of cultural produc­tion; there, we find a vision of Islam that is both familiar and unsettling. Within it, we must seek what is common. What is common is the Muslim monster.

The history of monsters is a subject addressed in several disciplines, among them history, theology, and religious studies. In this study, I will argue that imaginary Muslim ,monsters have determined the construction of the Muslim in Western thought. At times, these constructions have involved fantasies about Jewish and African bodies; ,at other times, they have reacted to anxieties surrounding categories beyond race-in particular, those related to religion, gender, and sexuality. To be clear, I am interested here in raising an awareness of these creatures-demons, giants, cannibals, vampires, zombies, and other monsters-that can help us understand the status of Muslims today as stock characters in the Western imaginary landscape. The character of the homicidal terroristic Muslim stalks the Western social imaginary in print media, television, and film, but he has ancestors.

Read More
1 Comment

Muslims In/and the West : Past, Present, Future Tariq Ramadan

8/21/2017

1 Comment

 
1 Comment

    Archives

    October 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    February 2016
    December 2015
    September 2014
    July 2014
    November 2012

    Categories

    All
    Alterity
    Europe
    ISIS
    Islamaphobia
    Liberalism
    Media
    Modernity
    Myanmar
    Orientalism
    Religious Conflict
    Rohingya
    Southeast Asia
    Violence

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Politics
    • Innovations in Contemporary Islamic Governance
  • Theory/Practice
  • Philosophy
  • Podcasts
  • Technology
  • Arts/Culture
  • Sexuality
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact