West Meets East in N. Africa

Catalog description

Orientalist travel accounts grew out of the consciousness of the culture Europe began to develop as “unique” and “separate” from other cultures. As well, the growing economic and military powers consolidated a feeling of superiority that would govern Europeans’ attitudes vis-a-vis non-Europeans. It was mainly economic interests that led to the imperialistic enterprises in the Arab-Islamic and African lands. Expeditions by westerners in N. Africa, the first “Orient”, prior to and during colonialism served as frameworks for orientalists to produce extensive works eroticizing, but often demonizing the Arab-Muslims. This course examines North African and Middle Eastern “Orientalist” literature and film. Western travel literature and other European and American sources will provide a vehicle to explore the way that economic, geo-political and cultural factors came to inform this historically intense relationship between East and West.