Desiring Arabs
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"A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic.... I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work." - Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report "In Desiring Arabs, Edward Said's disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor's thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing.... Massad brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present." - Financial Times"
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Sexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. In the past, Westerners viewed the Arab world as licentious, and Western intolerance of sex led them to brand Arabs as decadent; but as Western society became more sexually open, the supposedly prudish Arabs soon became viewed as backward. Rather than focusing exclusively on how these views developed in the West, in "Desiring Arabs" Joseph A. Massad reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. To this end, he assembles a massive and diverse compendium of Arabic writing from the nineteenth century to the present in order to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization.A work of impressive scope and erudition, Massad's chronicle of both the history and modern permutations of the debate over representations of sexual desires and practices in the Arab world is a crucial addition to our understanding of a frequently oversimplified and vilified culture.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
great purchase, the book was impeccable, it was delivered on time, I have nothing at all to complain about :) can't wait to start reading it!
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4 reviews
11 of 15 people found the following review helpful
thoughtful extension of said's thesis
26 Jan 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The work at hnd is thoroughly researched and passionately argued. It provides a summary of how Arabic speaking scholars viewed their own literary tradition and how their views changed under western influence and later in reaction to such influence. The summaries of poetry, novels, and films are very helpful but the core of the book is theoretical, a challenge to the imposition of european based theories of sexuality on the diversity of experience and sexualities among men in the former Ottoman empire.The book rightly challenges the sexual typology developed by liberationist rhetoric and corrects the frequent attempts to waylay medieval and other authors writing in Arabic into the 'gay' camp. From both an historical and anthropological perspective the book makes sense (to me at least) because it testifies to the gap between labels and the polymorphous and elusive nature of sexual desire. It also respects the differences in people and cultures over time.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A splendid and provocative work of scholarship and cultural analysis
4 Aug 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The work masterfully covers representations of Arab sexuality (mostly homosexuality). Massad examines many of the major works of literature on this topic as well as their reception in the critical commentary. Massed also does not flinch from providing his own reasoned and highly critical analysis of the gay rights movement as it is imported into the Arab world. He provides a scathing critique of western attempts to "liberate Arab gays". Massad is a capable and unflinching intellectual who calls it as he sees it even where doing so makes him unpopular and the target of really aggressive attack (we need more intellectuals like this these days!). His scholarship and his analytical capabilities are so impressive that you are convinced by argument, despite the fact that such conclusions cause to you question your fundamental prejudices inclinations and beliefs about the gay rights mission. This book not only caused me to read more Arabic literature generally but also has nuanced and enhanced my understanding of the gay rights movement in general. It left me a bit embarrassed about some of my existing belief structures. This is a good thing.
9 of 16 people found the following review helpful
The Byzantine Veil all over again
13 Jan 2008
Format:Hardcover
Like the Byzantines who viewed unveiled women as prostitues or lower class women and thus succeeded in creating the veiled Arab woman simply by implying they are a lower class if unveiled, Western literature of the last 1000 years referring to the Arabs as sodomites and pederasts and now, incredibly as homophobes, has imposed its mores and culture on their fluid concepts of Arab sexuality.
An excellent read.
An excellent read.
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