Islamophobia/ Islamophilia

by Shryock, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780253354792
• ISBN10: 025335479X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-09
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

"Islamophobia" is a term that has been widely applied to anti-Muslim ideas and actions, especially since 9/11. The contributors to this provocative volume explore and critique the usefulness of the concept for understanding contexts ranging from the Middle Ages to the modern day. Moving beyond familiar explanations such as good Muslim/bad Muslim stereotypes or the "clash of civilizations," they describe Islamophobia's counterpart, Islamophilia, which deploys similar oppositions in the interest of fostering public acceptance of Islam. Contributors address topics such as conflicts over Islam outside and within Muslim communities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia; the cultural politics of literature, humor, and urban renewal; and religious conversion to Islam.

Author Biography

Andrew Shryock is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is author of Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination; Arab Detroit; and Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11.

Excerpts

What is most problematic about Islamophobia is its essentializing and universalizing quality, which casts Islam itself and all Muslims as real or potential enemies.... What is harder to assess is the challenge of countering Islamophobic impulses in ways that do not simply invert or reinforce them by cultivating their opposite: the image of the Muslim as "friend," as a figure identified with the Self, characterized as familiar, and with whom legitimate conflict is not possible.... When 'friendship' is subordinated to the demands of sameness... it can be just as coercive, just as prone to misrecognition, as the sentiments of hostility it is meant to correct.