Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Readings of the Medieval Orient: Other Encounters

Authors

Liliana Sikorska, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan

Files

Document Type

Monograph

Description

Travel narratives and historical works shaped the perception of Muslims and the East in the Victorian and post-Victorian periods. Analyzing the discourses on Muslims which originated in the European Middle Ages, the first part of this book discusses the troubled legacy of the encounters between the East and the West and locates the nineteenth-century texts concerning the Saracens and their lands in the liminal space between history and fiction.

Drawing on the nineteenth-century models, the second part of the book looks at fictional and non-fictional works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century which re-established the “Oriental obsession,” stimulating dread and resentment, and even more strongly setting the Civilized West against the Barbaric East. Here medieval metaphorical enemies of Mankind – the World, the Flesh and the Devil – reappear in different contexts: the world of immigration, of white women desiring Muslim men, and the present-day "freedom fighters.

Publication Date

11-22-2021

Publisher

Medieval Institute Publications

City

Kalamazoo

ISBN

9781501517914

Keywords

orientalism, travel narratives, historical narratives, Saracens

Disciplines

European History | Islamic World and Near East History | Medieval Studies

Comments

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Additional formats available:

E-book (PDF): 9781501513367

E-book (EPUB): 9781501513107

Citation for Published Book

Sikorska, Liliana. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Readings of the Medieval Orient: Other Encounters. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2021.