Idols in the East

Idols in the East
Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Total Pages : 337
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780801464973
ISBN-13 : 0801464978
Rating : 4/5 (978 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Idols in the East by : Suzanne Conklin Akbari

Download or read book Idols in the East written by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over centuries, the figure of the wily Arab has given rise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, to the "Islamist" terrorist. In Idols in the East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari explores the premodern background of some of the Orientalist types still pervasive in present-day depictions of Muslims—the irascible and irrational Arab, the religiously deviant Islamist—and about how these stereotypes developed over time. Idols in the East contributes to the recent surge of interest in European encounters with Islam and the Orient in the premodern world. Focusing on the medieval period, Akbari examines a broad range of texts including encyclopedias, maps, medical and astronomical treatises, chansons de geste, romances, and allegories to paint an unusually diverse portrait of medieval culture. Among the texts she considers are The Book of John Mandeville, The Song of Roland, Parzival, and Dante's Divine Comedy. From them she reveals how medieval writers and readers understood and explained the differences they saw between themselves and the Muslim other. Looking forward, Akbari also comes to terms with how these medieval conceptions fit with modern discussions of Orientalism, thus providing an important theoretical link to postcolonial and postimperial scholarship on later periods. Far reaching in its implications and balanced in its judgments, Idols in the East will be of great interest to not only scholars and students of the Middle Ages but also anyone interested in the roots of Orientalism and its tangled relationship to modern racism and anti-Semitism.


Idols in the East Related Books

Idols in the East
Language: en
Pages: 337
Authors: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-04-05 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

GET EBOOK

Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over cent
Idols in the East
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

GET EBOOK

Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over cent
Moses among the Idols
Language: en
Pages: 233
Authors: Amy L. Balogh
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-09-15 - Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

GET EBOOK

In Moses among the Idols: Mediators of the Divine in the Ancient Near East, Balogh simultaneously redefines one of the greatest figures in the history of religi
Idols of the People
Language: en
Pages: 124
Authors: Peter Roger Stuart Moorey
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

These lectures investigate the numerous miniature baked clay images from Canaan, Israel and Judah (c. 1600-600 BC). They constitute vital evidence for the image
Islands of Eight Million Smiles
Language: en
Pages: 320
Authors: Hiroshi Aoyagi
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-03-17 - Publisher: BRILL

GET EBOOK

" Since the late 1960s a ubiquitous feature of popular culture in Japan has been the ""idol,"" an attractive young actor, male or female, packaged and promoted