Reversing The Colonial Gaze

A transformative account of the adventures of Persian travelers in the nineteenth century, moving beyond Eurocentric approaches to travel narratives.

An engrossing narrative of a colonial subject’s life contemplating his Imperial masters at the height of colonialism in India; based upon the first eight years of his life-long diary

Edward Said’s Orientalism, now more than fifty years old, has to be one of the most frequently cited books among academics in a wide range of disciplines, and the most frequently assigned book to undergraduates at colleges. Among the common questions raised in response to Said’s book: Did scholars in Western Europe provide crucial support to the imperialist, colonialist activities of European regimes? Are their writings on Islam laden with denigrating, eroticized, distorting biases that have left an indelible impact on Western society? What is the "Orientalism" invented by Europe and what is its impact today? However, one question has been less raised (or less has been done about the question): How were the Orientalist writings of European scholars of Islam received among their Muslim contemporaries? An international team of contributors rectify this oversight in this volume.

Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) is a seminal work in the field of postcolonial culture studies. It critiqued Western scholarship about the Eastern world for its patronizing attitude and tendency to view it as exotic, backward and uncivilized. Arvind Sharma, longstanding professor of comparative religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, now takes up the Palestinian academic's groundbreaking ideas - originally put forth predominantly in a Middle Eastern context - and tests them against Indian material. He explores in an Indian context Said's contention that the relationship between knowledge and power is central to the way the West depicts the non-West.Scholarly and accessible,The Ruler's Gaze throws fresh light on Indian colonial history through a Saidian lens.

This book delves into the history of subjective rights within the context of 19th-century Iran, specifically during the eventful Qajar era. The crux of its research lies in the emergence and evolution of the concept of subjective rights as opposed to the notion of objective rights. During this pivotal period, this transition marked a paradigm shift from “right as to be right” to “right as to have a right.” A central pillar of this book is the creation of a meta-theory, one that sheds light on the semantical evolution of the concept of rights. Within these pages, readers will find a concise history, tracing the conceptual path that led from the objective to the subjective realm of rights. In addition to these historical explorations, it delves into the intricate field of rights theory, investigating the foundations and justifications of rights. Employing the Hohfeldian framework, it analyses various conceptions of rights as they manifest within travel literature, enlightenment literature, and dream literature of the Qajar era. This book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in Iranian studies, Iranian history, Persian literature and human rights.

Deftly illustrating how life circumstances can influence ethnographic fieldwork, Mwenda Ntarangwi focuses on his experiences as a Kenyan anthropology student and professional anthropologist practicing in the United States and Africa. Whereas Western anthropologists often study non-Western cultures, Mwenda Ntarangwi reverses these common roles and studies the Western culture of anthropology from an outsider's viewpoint while considering larger debates about race, class, power, and the representation of the "other." Tracing his own immersion into American anthropology, Ntarangwi identifies textbooks, ethnographies, coursework, professional meetings, and feedback from colleagues and mentors that were key to his development. Reversed Gaze enters into a growing anthropological conversation on representation and self-reflexivity that ethnographers have come to regard as standard anthropological practice, opening up new dialogues in the field by allowing anthropologists to see the role played by subjective positions in shaping knowledge production and consumption. Recognizing the cultural and racial biases that shape anthropological study, this book reveals the potential for diverse participation and more democratic decision making in the identity and process of the profession.

Before Windrush: Recovering an Asian and Black Literary Heritage within Britain is an important intervention in the growing field of Black British literary studies. Composed of essays on non-white writers living in, or writing about, Britain in the period before the post-WW II wave of immigration, the anthology testifies to the existence of a British nation that has been multiracial and multicultural for centuries. Through an analysis of well-known figures such as Mary Prince, Mary Seacole, C. L. R. James, and Mulk Raj Anand as well as forgotten writers such as Helena Wells, Lucy Peacock, Olive Christian Malvery, Bhagvat Singh Jee, T. B. Pandian, and Lao She among others, the essays in Before Windrush shed light on an understudied aspect of Britain: its racial and ethnic complexity during the colonial period. The authors discussed here, whose work originates in and borrows from Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist conventions, challenge the implicit whiteness of English writing by showing the literary legacy of the Asian and black presence in Britain. Before Windrush places this hidden literary history of Asian and black literature within the social and cultural contexts of its British production. Contributors include Julie Codell, Pallavi Rastogi, W. F. Santiago-Valles, Jocelyn Fenton Stitt, Michelle Taylor, Stoyan Tchaprazov, Margaret Trenta, and Anne Witchard.