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      From Orientalism to Islamophobia: Reflections, Confirmations, and Reservations

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      ReOrient
      Pluto Journals
      Orientalism, Islamophobia, Orient, Islam, Muslim, Jew
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            Abstract

            While European Orientalism looks back on a long history, the rise of Islamophobia is generally found to have taken place since the 1990s. Both phenomena rely on recurrent and shifting ideas, tropes and narratives that are used when imagining and describing the Other, and tend to be based on variations of “Muslim,” “Jew,” and “Orient.” This introduction raises several aspects that are important in order to understand the two phenomena, as well as to appreciate the similarities and differences between them. While it is obvious that some typically orientalist tropes have made their way into contemporary Islamophobia, the contributions in this special issue of ReOrient also demonstrate that Orientalism can be understood as a multi-layered construct that conflated negative with positive sentiments, and thereby also occasionally romanticized the “Orient.” In contrast, Islamophobia is based on the unidimensional conception of an essentialized Islam and a racialized Muslim. Fueled by negative prejudices and stereotypes, it results in attitudes asserting undesirability, distrust, and hostility.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.2307/j50009694
            reorient
            ReOrient
            Pluto Journals
            2055-5601
            2055-561X
            1 April 2019
            : 4
            : 2 ( doiID: 10.13169/reorient.4.issue-2 )
            : 130-143
            Affiliations
            University of Fribourg, Switzerland
            Article
            reorient.4.2.0130
            10.13169/reorient.4.2.0130
            36e37557-85d8-4985-9979-ea56a8ac9442
            © 2019 Pluto Journals

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Custom metadata
            eng

            Literary studies,Religious studies & Theology,Social & Behavioral Sciences,History,Philosophy
            Jew,Islamophobia,Orientalism,Muslim,Islam,Orient

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