Muslims in the Western Imagination - download pdf or read online

Throughout historical past, Muslim males were depicted as monsters. The portrayal of people as monsters is helping a society delineate who belongs and who, or what, is excluded. even if symbolic, as in post-9/11 zombie movies, Muslim monsters nonetheless functionality to outline Muslims as non-human entities. those usually are not depictions of Muslim males as malevolent human characters, yet relatively as creatures that occupy the mind's eye -- non-humans that convey their wickedness outwardly at the dermis. They populate medieval stories, Renaissance work, Shakespearean dramas, Gothic horror novels, and Hollywood motion pictures. via an exhaustive survey of medieval, early sleek, and modern literature, artwork, and cinema, Muslims within the Western Imagination examines the dehumanizing ways that Muslim males were developed and represented as monsters, and the influence such representations have on perceptions of Muslims today.

The research is the 1st to give a family tree of those creatures, from the demons and giants of the center a long time to the hunchbacks with filed enamel which are featured within the 2007 movie 300, arguing that structures of Muslim monsters represent a habitual topic, first formulated in medieval Christian concept. Sophia Rose Arjana exhibits how Muslim monsters are frequently concerning Jewish monsters, and extra largely to Christian anti-Semitism and anxieties surrounding African and different overseas our bodies, which contains either spiritual bigotry and fears surrounding physically distinction. Arjana argues persuasively that those dehumanizing buildings are deeply embedded in Western awareness, current this present day as internalized ideals and practices that give a contribution to the tradition of violence--both rhetorical and physical--against Muslims.