Feras Alkabani

Richard Burton, T.E. Lawrence and the Culture of Homoerotic Desire (eBook, PDF)

Orientalist Depictions of Arab Sexuality

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire saw a crucial change in attitudes towards sexuality. Notions of 'respectability', 'propriety' and 'sexual morality' were being transformed in literary and cultural discourses, a shift that was related to the gradual rise in anti-Ottoman Arab nationalism. However, contemporary Orientalists such as Sir Richard Burton and T.E. Lawrence were oblivious to certain aspects of this process of cultural reconfiguration. While accounts of male-love poetry (ghazal al-mudhakkar) were being gradually expurgated from the Arab literary heritage, elaborate narratives of Oriental homoerotic desire distinctively characterise the encounters of both Burton and Lawrence with the Arab East.

By comparing their literary and autobiographical accounts of the Arab Orient with contemporary Arabic literature, Feras Alkabani is able to expose this critical disparity in cross-cultural portrayals of sexual morality and homoerotic desire. Alkabani relates the conflicting agendas of contemporary Orientalists and Arab scholars to the shifts in international imperial power relations and the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire. His detailed comparative study reveals the significance of homoerotic desire within Orientalist and Arab literary discourses at a time when the meaning and connotations of poetic male-love were undergoing a critical change in Arab culture and literature. It will prove invaluable for those researching Orientalism, nationalism, imperialism and manifestations of homoerotic desire in the fin-de-siècle Middle East.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 296
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. September 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781838603656
• Artikelnr.: 72250327

Autorenporträt

Feras Alkabani is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Sussex, where he co-directs the Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex (MENACS). He is a Trustee of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) and a member of the Editorial Board of the Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies (North Carolina State University).

Inhaltsangabe

Part I: In the Beginning was the Encounter: Orientalism and the Nahda
Introduction Sir Richard Burton & T.E. Lawrence: The Snake Charmers of
Empire Chapter One: Orientalism, the Nahda and Intercultural Perceptions of
Homoerotic Desire Part II: Sir Richard Burton's Arabian Treasures: Oriental
Pleasures from Text to Experience Chapter Two: Sir Richard Burton and The
Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A New Translation with an 'Other'
Interpretation Chapter Three: The Fictional and the Anthropological in the
'Sotadic Zone' and Beyond: Masquerades of Sorts Part III: Homoeroticism and
Nationalism in TE Lawrence's Rendition of the Arab Revolt Chapter Four:
The (Un)Changing East: Geopolitical Transitions from Burton to Lawrence
Chapter Five: Homoerotic Masquerade: An Unmasking of Desire Chapter Six:
Orientalist Wish-Fulfilment - Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (or Not?)
Chapter Seven: The Conjuring of a Revolt: Lawrence and Arab Nationalism
Chapter Eight: The Heroic and the Homoerotic: The Conjunction of Two
Perspectives Epilogue The Seductive Allure of the 'Other' Difference is
Sexy