"The Gaze Reframed: Orientalism, Neo-Orientalism, and the Literature of Consent", A Public Talk by Prof. Lobna Ben Salem (Manouba)
Date: 6pm, 29 April
Venue: GW264, University of Malta
Abstract:
Orientalism has operated in various historical paradigms but has always emphasised specific Western constructions of the Orient. Nowadays, the concept has metamorphosed to include new representations of Islam and the Muslim world. The aim of this presentation is threefold. It explores the historical development and paradigmatic shifts that have affected the concept of Orientalism, in reference particularly to what can nowadays be called post 9/11. It then suggests the emergence of neo-Orientalism, a new discursive practice that is less territorialized, holds a new ideologically motivated agenda, and feeds the social phenomenon called Islamophobia. Finally, the presentation looks at recent literary works by Muslim writers who tend to represent Muslims as the morally deficient opposite of the West, contributing to the normalization of these assumptions in popular culture and, in doing so, showcasing how the Orientalist lens has been internalized, redeployed, and even monetized by the very people it once othered. Azar Nafisi will be a case in point.
Bionote:
Lobna Ben Salem is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Humanities, Manouba, Tunisia. She is interested in French, Arabic, and English Literature from Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East. She is the author of Poetics of the Homeland: Palestine in Mourid Barghouti’s Memoirs (2018). Her recent publications include the articles “South African Literature and the ‘Strange Seductiveness’ of the Fantastic” (Matatu, 2023), “‘Post-Nakba, Post-Auschwitz Poetics’: Transcending Narratives of Affliction in Mahmoud Darwish’s and Yehuda Amichai’s Poetry” (Postcolonial Text, 2021), and the book chapter “Inclusive, Exclusive and Exceptional: On the Aporia of Citizenship” (Precarity in Culture: Precarious Lives, Uncertain Futures, 2023).
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