In an era of rampant Islamophobia, what do literary representations of Muslims and anti-Muslim bigotry tell us about changing concepts of cultural difference? In Islamophobia and the Novel, Peter Morey analyzes how recent works of fiction have framed and responded to the rise of anti-Muslim prejudice, showing how their portrayals of Muslims both reflect and refute the ideological preoccupations of media and politicians in the post-9/11 West.Islamophobia and the Novel discusses novels embodying a range of positions—from the avowedly secular to the religious, and from texts that appear to underwrite Western assumptions of cultural superiority to those that recognize and critique neoimperial impulses. Morey offers nuanced readings of works by John Updike, Ian McEwan, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Mohsin Hamid, John le Carré, Khaled Hosseini, Azar Nafisi, and other writers, emphasizing the demands of the literary marketplace for representations of Muslims. He explores how depictions of Muslim experience have challenged liberal assumptions regarding the novel’s potential for empathy and its ability to encompass a variety of voices. Morey argues for a greater degree of critical self-consciousness in our understanding of writing by and about Muslims, in contrast to both exclusionary nationalism and the fetishization of difference. Contemporary literature’s capacity to unveil the conflicted nature of anti-Muslim bigotry expands our range of resources to combat Islamophobia. This, in turn, might contribute to Islamophobia’s eventual dismantling.
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Islamophobia and the Novel analyzes how recent works of fiction have framed and responded to the rise of anti-Muslim prejudice alongside changing concepts of cultural difference. Peter Morey offers readings of novels that show how their portrayal of difference both reflects and refutes the ideological preoccupations of the post-9/11 West.
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AcknowledgmentsIntroduction—Islamophobia: The Word and the World1. Islam, Culture, and Anarchy: Faith, Doubt, and Liberalism in Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and John Updike2. From Multiculturalism to Islamophobia: Identity Politics and Individualism in Hanif Kureishi and Monica Ali3. Muslim Misery Memoirs: The Truth Claims of Exotic Suffering in Azar Nafisi and Khaled Hosseini4. Migrant Cartographies: Islamophobia and the Politics of the City Space in Amy Waldman and H. M. Naqvi5. States of Statelessness: Islamophobia and Border Spaces in the Post-9/11 Thrillers of John Le Carré, Dan Fesperman, and Richard Flanagan6. Islamophobia and the Global Novel: “Worlding” History in Nadeem Aslam and Kamila Shamsie7. Marketing the Muslim: Globalization and the Postsecular in Mohsin Hamid and Leila AboulelaConclusion—Toward a Critical Muslim Literary StudiesNotesBibliographyIndex
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With his characteristic brilliance and integrity, Peter Morey, a noted public intellectual, illustrates the impact of surging Islamophobia on mainstream literature in this masterful study. A man whose career has centered on building bridges between divided cultures, his is a voice to heed in these confusing and troubled times.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780231177740
Publisert
2018-08-14
Utgiver
Vendor
Columbia University Press
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Forfatter

Biographical note

Peter Morey is professor of twentieth-century English literature at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Fictions of India: Narrative and Power (2000) and Rohinton Mistry (2004) and coauthor of Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11 (2011).