International Symposium
6 – 7 July 2017
An ICI Event organized by Saima Akhtar, Walid
El-Houri, and Banu Karaca in cooperation with Europe in the Middle East – the
Middle East in Europe (EUME), a programme at the Forum Transregionale Studie
Orientalism – and its images – are far from
dead. Despite Edward Said’s forceful critique of Orientalism as a regime of representation
that dominates and structures an ambiguous ‘East’, its discourse persists.
Representations, in the form of paintings, drawings, photography, films, and
maps, have been powerful means by which the ‘Middle East’ has been pictured in
the last two centuries, and, as such, have animated imperialist projects,
fueled Orientalist and self-Orientalist fantasies, and upheld reductive and
essentialized understandings of the region and its people. Since September
2001, Orientalist imagery has undergone a political and social intensification,
which is now compounded by the ‘refugee crisis.’ This intensification has been
made apparent in discourses that easily interchange the ‘immigrant’ for the
‘refugee’ and ‘Muslim’ in Europe and the US, but also in tropes of Arab, Muslim
or Oriental otherness used by political actors in the region itself.
This symposium examines the continued
seductiveness that Orientalism seems to hold over the production of images of
the contemporary ‘Middle East’, both inside and outside of the region. How are
(self) Orientalized images and imaginaries translated into perceptions of
authenticity and identity? How do such images figure into the policies and
politics in the ongoing ‘global war on terror’? How do modes of contemporary
image-making engage with, resist, or respond to tropes of Orientalism in the
current political moment?
Presentations in English, limited to 20
minutes. Please email an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short
biographical profile (150 words max) to imagingmiddleeast@gmail.com by 23
April 2017. As with all events at the ICI Berlin, there is no registration fee.
Assistance in securing discounted accommodation for the conference period can
be provided.
No comments:
Post a Comment