Liberal universalism is reasserted as defense against Islamic terrorism.
Evidence
This exchange encapsulates all that has gone before and puts Shahid (and Kureishi) in the company of those writers who in the days after 9/11 were to reassert the liberal universalism of the Western literary tradition as a main line of defense against Islamic terrorism. Here, I would draw attention to the way in which Shahid’s reply underwrites the novel’s broader disavowal of positions that are seen as a threat to foundational cultural values. … The rearticulation of the notion of an unfettered, free-floating artist, responsible to no one but himself, is juxtaposed against a kind of fanaticism in the Other that is central to contemporary Islamophobia: the herd mentality, the absence of critical thought, the propensity for violence. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 178
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- SEED: The libral-universalism-as-defense move gives an essay angle: how supposedly anti-Islamophobic liberal novels can secretly reinforce the herd-mentality stereotype of Muslims.
- XREF: The ‘free-floating artist responsible to no one’ ideal is exactly the test to run on Changez and Darashikoh — do they claim no standpoint, or a contested one?
Related
- A novel can criticize explicit Islamophobia while endorsing its underlying assumptions (similarity 0.86)
- Literature resists Islamophobic universalism by structuring feeling and imagining alternative experiences (similarity 0.82)
- Islamophobia in literature can reside in universalist reading practices rather than overt denunciation (similarity 0.80)
- Islamophobia worldwide shares the core link between Islam and terrorism (similarity 0.80)
- Even benign literary-humanist gestures can align with Islamophobic civilizational rhetoric (similarity 0.80)
- Liberal thrillers can reinforce Islamophobia by refusing to narrate Muslim interiority (similarity 0.80)
- Anti-Islamophobia novels can themselves profit from trading in Muslim stereotypes. (similarity 0.79)
- Novels contesting Islamophobia are enmeshed in the very market that trades on it (similarity 0.79)
- Aesthetic universalism itself can quietly reinforce Islamophobia (similarity 0.79)
- Liberal novelists cast literature itself as a core Western value threatened by Islam (similarity 0.79)
- Islamophobia is a fractured, contradictory discourse rather than a unified monolith (similarity 0.79)
- Anti-Islam rhetoric gained legitimacy by wrapping itself in liberal values. (similarity 0.79)
- Novels can reproduce or contest Islamophobia irrespective of authorial intent through formal features (similarity 0.79)
- Literature, drama, art, and cinema sustain a habitus about Islam built on Muslim monsters (similarity 0.79)
- Liberal imperialists and neocons both frame Islamism as the new totalitarianism requiring Western expungement (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- State-sponsored Islamophobia enforces the presumption linking Muslims to terrorism.
#expands(0.50) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 337 - Islamophobia worldwide shares the core link between Islam and terrorism
#expands(0.50) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 162