Contesting Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Media, Culture and Politics

Description

Islamophobia is one of the most prevalent forms of prejudice in the world today. The rhetoric of populist politicians declares Islam a menace to Western culture, surveillance by state agencies increases exponentially and rhetoric about immigration hardens, legitimising the harassment and violent attacks that Muslim communities often suffer. This book reveals the way in which Islamophobia’s pervasive power is everywhere being met with responses which challenge it and the worldview on which it rests. The volume moves beyond others by outlining the characteristics of contemporary Islamophobia across a range of public discourses in both Europe and the United States. Chapters examine issues such as how anti-Muslim prejudice facilitates the questionable foreign and domestic policies of Western governments; the operation of anti-Muslim bias in media and the arts; attempts to challenge Islamophobia in education; and forms of Muslim self-fashioning in popular culture and new media to oppose stereotypes. Based on contributions from experts in history, sociology, literature and the humanities, the book brings together perspectives from culture and the arts as well as political and policy reflections. Contributors argue for the power of spaces of cultural and media expression to create counter-discourses and counterselves through which Muslims can answer back to misrepresentation and institutionalised Islamophobia. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Contributors The Editors Acknowledgements Foreword: The Roots of Modern Islamophobia Islamophobia’s contemporary resurgence The impact of 9/11 on popular culture The media as an enabler of Islamophobia Islamophobia in American and European elections Conclusion Notes Works cited Introduction: Contesting Islamophobia in Theory and Practice Notes Works cited Part 1: Islamophobia, Politics and History Chapter 1: American Foreign Policy, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Muslims as Enemy Others Introduction Rethinking Islamophobia’s historical point of departure A forty-year marriage of war and stereotypes Post-9/11 policies and institutionalization The inescapable terror of the ‘War on Terror’ Conclusion Notes Works cited Chapter 2: Donald Trump at the Intersection of Nativism, Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment: American Roots and Parallels Coming to terms Immigrants and natives Immigrant and nativist religions Conclusion Notes Works cited Chapter 3: Islamophobia: The Muslim Problem? A Discussion between Dibyesh Anand, Myriam Francois and Jim Wolfreys Part 2: Islamophobia and Representation Chapter 4: Islamophobia and the War of Representations: Martin Amis’s ‘The Last Days of Muhammad Atta’ Literary fiction and the War on Terror Defining the terrorist in (dead) time Amis’s victory: Imagined retribution as eternal recurrence Conclusion Notes Works cited Chapter 5: ‘A Sly and Stubborn People’: Game of Thrones, Orientalism and Islamophobia Introduction Westeros and Essos Daenerys Targaryen: The making of a white saviour ‘Breaker of Chains’: Slaver’s Bay and benevolent conquest Religion, radicalization and resistance in West and East Conclusion Notes Works cited Chapter 6: Islamic Feminism in a Time of Islamophobia: The Muslim Heroines of Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Elif Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love Introduction The visibility of Muslim women, sharia and Islamic feminism The Forty Rules of Love Minaret Conclusion Notes Works cited Part 3: Youth Contesting Islamophobia Chapter 7: Countering Islamophobia in the Classroom Notes Works cited Chapter 8: Resisting Islamophobia: Muslim Youth Activism in the UK The Muslim ‘subject’: Framing moderates and extremists Unframing Muslims: Student activism, universities and the internet Beyond the frame: Contestations and resistance Notes Works cited Chapter 9: Young Muslims in Germany and Their Use of New Media to Counter Islamophobia Introduction The German public sphere Frustration with the mainstream public Self-definitions and alternative identity representations Circulation of counter-discourses and criticism of the mainstream public Conclusion Notes Works cited Part 4: Art beyond Islamophobia Chapter 10: Adjusting the ‘Islamic’ Focus: Exhibitions of Contemporary Pakistani Art in Britain in the Post-9/11 Decade Introduction Framing Pakistani art as ‘Islamic’ before and after 9/11 Emphasizing craft: Threads, Dreams, Desires (2002) Exhibiting ‘Attitude’: Beyond the Page (2006) Conclusions Notes Works cited Chapter 11: Super Moozlim Battles Islamophobia Dangerous Muslim: An intervention Muslims in American comics Crossroads and outcasts Conclusion: Defying boundaries Notes Works cited Chapter 12: Homegrown: The Story of a Controversy Note Index