Orientalism
All topics-
Iran and Saudi Arabia:
A plea for Islamic tolerance
The escalating rivalries and animosities between Iran and Saudi Arabia have nothing to do with the Sunni-Shia divide in the Islamic theology, even less with the common fate and destiny of Iranians and Arabs among other nations in the region. An analysis by Hamid Dabashi
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Goethe′s fascination with the "Thousand and One Nights"
Mephistopheles spoke; Scheherazade beguiled
To date, critical studies of Faust have given little consideration to its Oriental elements, in particular the fables from the "Thousand and One Nights". Goethe′s fascination with the famous storyteller Scheherazade, and his adoption of her narrative techniques and themes, has been underestimated. By Melanie Christina Mohr
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Taha Hussein and the democratisation of education in Egypt
The sea of knowledge
The Egyptian author Taha Hussein warned as long ago as the 1930s that the future of Egypt depended on reforming its education system. His book "The Future of Culture in Egypt" is a plea for an enlightened, democratic and Mediterranean Egypt. By Andreas Pflitsch
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The headscarf in the colonial period
Remove your veils!
As far back as over 100 years ago, people were already arguing that the headscarf was a symbol of male oppression and therefore incompatible with Western civilisation and its system of values. In the French colonies, authorities actually followed through on these ideas, forcing women to take off their veils. Historical insights from Susanne Kaiser
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Global history
Playing with the relativity of perspectives
A new six-volume work entitled "A History of the World" is the high point of a historiographical boom in the discipline known as "global history". The project attempts to overcome the eurocentrism of traditional writings of history. By Andreas Pflitsch
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Translations of Classical Islamic Literature
From the Emotional Orient to the Distortion of Islam
Why does classical Oriental poetry still sound so ornate to western ears? Blame the translations. These are still following the model of the eighteenth century, when the myth arose that Islamic poets were sentimental geniuses in the realm of emotion and romance. An essay by Stefan Weidner
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Essay by Adania Shibli
Recalling Edward Said's Thought Today
The influential theorist and public intellectual Edward W. Said produced a body of work that, right up to the present, resonates worldwide in a variety of fields. Ten years after his death, Adania Shibli takes a look at his legacy, and what it means to us today
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The Islamic "Culture of Ambiguity"
Plurality as a Matter of Course
How does a wine goblet find its way into an Islamic art collection? In "The Culture of Ambiguity", Thomas Bauer describes the wide boundaries of Muslim culture and asserts that in the West cultural goods are often considered to be "Islamic" when they're actually not
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Edward W. Said: ''Music at the Limits''
Undifferentiated Blanket Judgements and Insults
Overbearing, partial, brash: Said's book Music at the Limits compiles the great Arab intellectual's music criticism. A review by Jens Rosteck
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The Legend of Lawrence of Arabia
The Recalcitrant Hero
With the benefit of hindsight, there is something superhuman about his character. However, more than almost anyone else, Lawrence embodies the transformation from hero to anti-hero that shaped literature in the twentieth century. By Stefan Weidner
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Edward Said's "Orientalism"
The Orient beyond Cliché
The Palestinian-American literary scholar Edward Said (1935 – 2003) is required reading for anyone talking about Islam today. His main work, Orientalism, recently came out in a new German translation. Stefan Weidner read it for Qantara.de