Colonial Fantasies Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism [Hardcover]

This 1998 book is a feminist and post-colonial examination of Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient.Colonial Fantasies, first published in 1998, examines the Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient. It challenges dualistic conceptions of identity and difference, West and East, and questions the traditional masculinist assumptions of Orientalism and feminist discourses which seek to 'liberate' the veiled woman.Colonial Fantasies, first published in 1998, examines the Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient. It challenges dualistic conceptions of identity and difference, West and East, and questions the traditional masculinist assumptions of Orientalism and feminist discourses which seek to 'liberate' the veiled woman.Meyda Yegenoglu investigates the intersection between postcolonial and feminist criticism, via the Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient. Linking representations of cultural and sexual difference, she shows the Oriental woman to have functioned as the veiled interior of Western identity. Her original and compelling argument calls into question dualistic conceptions of identity and difference, West and East, masculinist assumptions of Orientalism, and Western feminist discourses that seek to liberate the veiled woman.Introduction; 1. Mapping the field of colonial discourse; 2. Veiled fantasies: cultural and sexual difference in the discourse of orientalism; 3. Supplementing the Orientalist lack: European ladies in the harem; 4. Sartorial fabric-action: enlightenment and Western feminism; 5. The battle of the veil: women between Orientalism and nationalism.