Representing the Middle East: Issues in the Politics of Culture

Catalog description

Media depictions of the Middle East have transnational ramifications on political discourse and cultural identification around the globe. This seminar explores the cultural politics of such representations, beginning from the premise that representation itself is a contested site. Students will examine film, visual culture, and literature to ask how "the real" is mediated for various audiences. How can key dilemmas be best approached, such as the clash between theological taboos and notions of freedom of expression in recent controversies about Danish cartoons and Charlie Hebdo? Can readings of texts, films, and digital spaces see beyond familiar negative stereotypes or positive public images? The seminar will be organized around significant themes, concepts, and questions, including the exotic and the imperial imaginary; travel and the Holy Land; gender and national allegory; the representation of the "real"; religious taboo and visual representation; antiquity in contemporary popular culture; memoir and the post/colonial gaze; and dislocation and diaspora in the transnational reception of Middle Eastern cinema, art, and culture.