This week examines the extent to which images of the Middle East produced in the West are not so much about ‘Others’ but ourselves (the West). We do this by exploring the kinds of images, scholarship, and power differentials produced about the region (as an object of knowledge).

[LECTURE SLIDES]

Seminar Questions:

What are some of the recurrent tropes (themes, ideas, motifs) produced about the Middle East?

What does it mean to produce knowledge about a place or people? What kinds of technologies (techniques and practices) enable and sustain this practice of 'othering'? Use examples from the readings.

To what extent are representations of the Middle East about the West?

What are the origins of the seemingly absolute political and cultural separation of 'Islamic east' and 'Christian west'?

What is the relation between producing authoritative knowledge and producing power?

Who or what gets excluded in this political process of re-presentation?

Reading:

Timothy Mitchell, ‘The invention and reinvention of the Egyptian peasant,’ International Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1990): pp.129-150.

Richard Critchfield, Shahhat, an Egyptian, (Syracuse University Press, 1978), pp.3-24 [skim].

Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, (Interlink Publishing, 2014), pp. 23-60 (Part One: Introduction).

Jerry Bolton, The Renaissance Bazaar, (Oxford University Press: 2002), pp.48-54.

Recommended Reading:

Richard Critchfield, and Timothy Mitchell, ‘Response’ and Reply’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, 1991: pp.277-280.

Edward Said, Orientalism (Pantheon Books, 1978).

Malek Alloula, The Colonial Harem (University of Minnesota Press, 1986).