Islam and Postcolonial Discourse Purity and Hybridity [Hardcover]

Largely, though not exclusively, as a legacy of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, Islamic faith has become synonymous in many corners of the media and academia with violence, which many believe to be its primary mode of expression. The absence of a sophisticated recognition of the wide range of Islamic subjectivities within contemporary culture has created a void in which misinterpretations and hostilities thrive. Responding to the growing importance of religion, specifically Islam, as a cultural signifier in the formation of a postcolonial self, this multidisciplinary collection is organized around contested terms such as secularism, Islamopolitics, female identity, and Islamophobia. The overarching goal of the contributors is to facilitate a deeper understanding of the full range of experiences within Islam as well as the figure of the Muslim, thus enabling a new set of questions about religions role in shaping postcolonial identity.

Table of Contents:

1. Foreword

Claire Chambers

2. Introduction

Esra Mirze Santesso

3. History of the Muslim Other

Saracens in Middle English Romance

Janice Hawes

The Two Faced Muslim in the Early Modern Imagination: The Cultural Genealogy of a Modern Political Dialectic

Imtiaz Habib

4. Secularism and Islamopolitics

Naguib Mahfouzs Cairo Trilogy: Mediating Secularism in Postcolonial Egypt

Rehnuma Sazzad

Unmasking Allah: The Violence of Religious Theater in Nawal El Saadawis God Dies by the Nile

Rajesh Reddy

The Terror of Symbols: Colonialism, Secularism, and Islam in Cheikh Hamidou Kanes Aml3&