Imagining the Arab Other: How Arabs and Non-Arabs Represent Each Other (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

In this innovative study, Professor Tahar Labib seeks to understand how the 'Other' is viewed in Arab culture, and vice versa. Imagining The Arab Other examines how Turks, Europeans, Christians and Iranians have been represented in the arts, opinions and cultures of the Arab world. Conversely, it also explores the intellectual representation of 'The Arab' in other cultures. It demonstrates the central role of the Catholic Church in ascribing to the Arab peoples a set of characteristics associated with the 'Other'. Labib places this survey in the context of theoretical debates, started by Edward Said's 'Orientalism', on the construction of 'Other'. With its diversity of perspectives, Imagining The Arab Other offers a new way of understanding of identity and cultural difference in the Middle East, one which goes beyond the Orientalist / Occidentalist paradigm.