[DOWNLOAD] "To Love the Orientalist: Masculinity in Leila Aboulela's the Translator." by Masculinities and Spirituality Journal of Men # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

July 26, 2021

eBook details

Title: To Love the Orientalist: Masculinity in Leila Aboulela's the Translator.
Author : Masculinities and Spirituality Journal of Men
Release Date : January 01, 2007
Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
Pages : * pages
Size : 212 KB

Description

This paper examines representations of Orientalist and Islamic masculinity in Leila Aboulela's The Translator. In her representation of the character of Rae Isles, Aboulela writes back to repressive Western traditions of Orientalist masculinity, fashions a narrative which negotiates a way out of stagnant binaries of West and East, and offers a model of progressive, socially engaged masculinity rooted in Islamic tradition. Early in Leila Aboulela's (2001b) The Translator, as Sammar and Yasmin leave Rae's flat, Sammar remarks that Rae is "sort of familiar, like people from back home [Sudan]" (p. 21). Yasmin replies, "He's an orientalist. It's an occupational hazard" (p. 21). Sammar is uncomfortable with Orientalism: "[She] did not like the word orientalist. Orientalists were bad people who distorted the image of the Arabs and Islam. Something from school history or literature, she could not remember. Maybe modern orientalists were different" (p. 22). Despite Sammar's evident discomfort, in this moment she holds out the possibility that cross-cultural relationships can exist which do not serve to suppress difference - perhaps the Orientalist can be redeemed. It is this moment in the text which highlights the convergence and interdependence of the discourses of Orientalism, Islam, religion, academia and masculinity within the novel, particularly as they are represented in the character of Rae Isles. I want to explore how Aboulela's representations of Rae ultimately subvert conventional Orientalist notions of masculinity. To do this, I examine how Aboulela's novel writes back not only to Western traditions of Orientalism and romance, but also engages with Aboulela's own Sudanese Islamic literary tradition. Out of this writing-back, Aboulela fashions a narrative which provides a way out of the stagnant binaries of West and East, and repressive constructions of Islam and masculinity.