Media depictions of Arabs and Muslims continue to be framed by images of camels, belly dancers, and dagger-wearing terrorists. But do only Hollywood movies and TV news have the power to frame public discourse? This interdisciplinary study transfers media framing theory to literary studies to show how life writing (re-)frames Orientalist stereotypes. The innovative analysis of the post-9/11 autobiographies »West of Kabul, East of New York«, »Letters from Cairo«, and »Howling in Mesopotamia« makes a powerful claim to approach literature based on a theory of production and reception, thus enhancing the multi-disciplinary potential of framing theory.

In Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin dissect how stereotypes that depict Muslims as an inherently problematic presence in the West are constructed, deployed, and circulated in the public imagination, producing an immense gulf between representation and a considerably more complex reality.

September 11th, 2001 remains a focal point of American consciousness, a site demanding ongoing excavation, a site at which to mark before and after "everything" changed. In ways both real and intangible the entire sequence of events of that day continues to resonate in an endlessly proliferating aftermath of meanings that continue to evolve. Presenting a collection of analyses by an international body of scholars that examines America's recent history, this book focuses on popular culture as a profound discursive site of anxiety and discussion about 9/11 and demystifies the day's events in order to contextualize them into a historically grounded series of narratives that recognizes the complex relations of a globalized world. Essays in Reframing 9/11 share a collective drive to encourage new and original approaches for understanding the issues both within and beyond the official political rhetoric of the events of the "The Global War on Terror" and issues of national security.

Reconsidering the Mediterranean, appreciating and demarginalizing the peoples and cultures of this vast region, while considering the affinities and differences, is a valuable part of the process of unframing and reframing the concept of the Mediterranean. The authors of this volume follow Franco Cassano’s refusal of a sort of prêt-à-porter reality of cohabitation of cultures, introducing instead un’alternativa mediterranea, a world of multiple cultures that entails an ongoing learning and experiencing. The volume’s contributors use an interdisciplinary approach that mirrors the hybridity of the area and of the discipline, that is much more introspective and humanistic, more contemporary and inclusive.

Mobility has become one of the most exciting factors shaping our transnational and transcultural world today. However, the variety of approaches and stimulating debates it has engendered in geopolitics and sociology make it challenging for literary and cultural critics to establish solid approaches and own vocabularies. Through a variety of case studies written by international contributors, this volume addresses emerging topics by using the tools of border studies, postcolonial discourse, and globalization theory. The multiple perspectives provided here emphasize the interaction between migrants and hosts as material, discursive, and historical. The chapters in this volume view identities as mobile and in constant flux, constructed and reconstructed repeatedly in historical and cultural encounters with several others. As a result of this dynamic, established stereotypes and images are challenged and revised in the analyses here. The book concludes that cultural identities are increasingly visible as results of large-scale global mobility. In so doing, it challenges views that address ethnicity as an unambiguous category and reveals that the making of such identities is contradictory and even conflicting.

This book critically examines the representational politics of women in post-millennial Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran across a range of literary, visual, and digital media. Introducing the conceptual model of remediated witnessing, the book contemplates the ways in which meaning is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed as a consequence of its (re)production and (re)distribution. In what ways is information re framed? The chapters in this book therefore analyse the reiterative processes via which Afghan, Pakistani, and Iranian women are represented in a range of contemporary media. By considering how Muslim women have been exploited as part of neo-imperial, state, and patriarchal discourses, the book charts possible—and unexpected—routes via which Muslim women might enact resistance. What is more, it asks the reader to consider how they, themselves, embody the role of witness to these resistant subjectivities, and how they might do so responsibly, with empathy and accountability.

How, if it all, do museums shape the ways in which society understands difference? In recent decades there has been growing international interest amongst practitioners, academics and policy makers in the role that museums might play in confronting prejudice and promoting human rights and cross-cultural understanding. Museums in many parts of the world are increasingly concerned to construct exhibitions which represent, in more equitable ways, the culturally pluralist societies within which they operate, accommodating and engaging with differences on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion, disability, sexuality and so on. Despite the ubiquity of these trends, there is nevertheless limited understanding of the social effects, and attendant political consequences, of these purposive representational strategies. Richard Sandell combines interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives with in-depth empirical investigation to address a number of timely questions. How do audiences engage with and respond to exhibitions designed to contest, subvert and reconfigure prejudiced conceptions of social groups? To what extent can museums be understood to shape, not simply reflect, normative understandings of difference, acceptability and tolerance? What are the challenges for museums which attempt to engage audiences in debating morally charged and contested contemporary social issues and how might these be addressed? Sandell argues that museums frame, inform and enable the conversations which audiences and society more broadly have about difference and highlights the moral and political challenges, opportunities and responsibilities which accompany these constitutive qualities.

Orientalism, Zionism and Academic Practice explores the field of Israeli Middle East and Islamic Studies (MEIS) sociologically and politically, as a window onto the relationship between Orientalism, Zionism and academia. The book draws special attention to neoliberal discourse and praxis in everyday higher education, the interests of scholars, and the political form that commercialisation takes in specific disciplinary and geopolitical conditions by deconstructing structural and historical presuppositions and effective ideologies that overdetermine this junction of academia, orientalism and Zionism. The multi-layered study draws on various scholarly traditions and offers new evidence for, and insights in, historical and cultural-discursive discussions. It highlights paradigmatic gaps in reading Saidian orientalism, re-evaluates the origins and evolution of the local field, contributes to the study of everyday academic culture in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), and unveils the presupposed and the unsaid of the general and the specific field, exploring the intersection of an orientalist expertise, in a settler-colonial society, and everyday academic capitalism. The expertise of this sociological and discursive study make it an invaluable resource for academics and students interested in Israel and Middle East studies, Higher Education and the Sociology of Academia.

From the rise of populist leaders and the threat of democratic backsliding to polarizing culture wars and the return of great power competition, the backlash against the political, economic, and social liberalism is increasingly labeled "illiberal." Yet, despite the increasing importance of these phenomena, scholars still lack a firm grasp on illiberalism as a conceptual tool for understanding societal transformations. The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism addresses this gap by establishing a theoretical foundation for the study of illiberalism and showcasing state-of-the-art research on this phenomenon in its varied scripts-political, economic, cultural, and geopolitical. Bringing together the expertise of dozens of scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism offers a thorough overview that characterizes the current state of the field and charts a path forward for future scholarship on this critical and quickly developing concept.

Drawing on Bakhtin’s notion of ideological becoming and the concepts of intersectionality and transnationalism, this volume offers a unique conceptual framework to explore and better understand the identity construction and negotiation of international TESOL students. Focusing on female graduate students studying in the U.S., the text utilizes rich narratives to illustrate how nuanced language teacher identities develop through complex dialogic processes relating to language, race, and gender—as well as migration experiences—and individuals’ integration in academic and professional communities. Ultimately, the text contests deficit reductionist views of transnational students that are implied by educational policies and administration. This text will benefit scholars, academics, and students in the fields of bilingualism, TESOL, multicultural education, and language identity more broadly. Those involved with teaching and teacher education, as well as language and culture in general, will also benefit from this book.