Decadent Orientalisms : The Decay of Colonial Modernity / David Fieni.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fieni, David, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Orientalism--France.

Orientalism.

Orientalism in literature.

Decadence in literature.

Decadence (Literary movement)--France.

Decadence (Literary movement).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western discourses of Eastern decline and obsolescence together with Arab and Islamic responses in which the language of decadence returns as a characteristic of the West. Taking seriously Edward Said’s claim that Orientalism is a “style of having power,” Fieni works historically through the aesthetic and ideological effects of Orientalist style, showing how it is at once comparative, descriptive, and performative. Orientalism, the book argues, relies upon decadence as the figure through which its positivist scientific claims become redistributed as speech acts—“truths” that establish dominance. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a repertoire of clichés and stereotypes, Decadent Orientalisms considers the systemic epistemological consequences of the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism’s power.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction. Orientalist decadence

Chapter 1. French decadence, Arab awakenings: figures of decay in the Nahda

Chapter 2. Al- shidyaq’s decadent carnival

Chapter 3. From Dreyfus in the colony to Céline's anti- semitic style

Chapter 4. Resurrecting colonial decadence in independent Algeria

Chapter 5. Algerian women and the invention of literary mourning

Chapter 6. Virtual secularization: Abdelwahab meddeb’s “walking cure” and the immigrant body in France

Conclusion. Toward a contrapuntal double critique of colonial modernity

Acknowledgments

Notes

Select bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

0-8232-8642-8

OCLC:

1130027662