Literary criticism should read Muslim texts as intercultural negotiation, not alien-mind keys

Evidence

Secular criticism as an adjunct of cultural nationalism is not the only lens through which to view Muslim writing. This book ends with a plea for further work to understand the mutually shaping history of Western and non-Western narrative traditions, the better to combat Islamophobic assertions of exclusionary difference. This work, in turn, could inform conventions of criticism and reviewing that at present too often value Muslim writing only for what it can tell us about supposedly alien mindsets. What we need is a critical Muslim studies to match developments such as critical race studies, and we need to keep always in view the standpoints of interlocutors who have different degrees of symbolic, cultural, and economic capital. On the terrain of literature, this seems the best way to counteract Islamophobia and to lay the groundwork for a form of literary and cultural criticism that does not fetishize difference but rather understands the text as always already a space of intercultural negotiation. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s framing question: for Hamid and Naqvi readings, judging whether a novel frames its text as ‘intercultural negotiation’ vs. supplying ‘alien mindsets’ is exactly the contest- vs-reinforce axis.
• DEFINE: Sketch of what ‘critical Muslim studies’ and a non-fetishizing criticism would do — the vocabulary sought.
• SEED: Possible essay angle: using Morey’s ‘critical Muslim studies’ standard to assay whether Reluctant Fundamentalist and Home Boy count as intercultural negotiation rather than difference fetish.