Desiring the Big Bad Blade
Racing the Sheikh in Desert Romances
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2958733 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amira Jarmakani (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 895-928 |
| Publication date | 2011-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/aq.2011.0061 |
| OpenAlex | W2023072946 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 19 |
Through a consideration of desert romances (mass-market romances whose hero is a sultan, sheikh, or desert prince), this essay argues that the racialization of Arabs and Muslims in contemporary popular culture operates by conflating ethnicity, religion, geography, and the notion of civilization. As the racialization of actual Arabs and Muslims in the global North has become more overt, the representational racialization of sheikhs in desert romances has become more covert. Ironically, precisely because romance novels must protect the fantasy narrative by submerging any overt references to race, they are useful for exploring the shifting meanings of race vis-à-vis Arabs and Muslims
Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Blade (archaeology · Desert (philosophy · Geography · Political science · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
Postcolonial Theory and the United States
How Jews became white folks and what that says about race in America
Covering Islam
Playing in the dark
Racial Formation in the United States
Lawrence of Arabia
Women and the Popular Imagination in the Twenties
Unthinking Eurocentrism
Between Arab and White
“The Sheik Who Loved Me”
Formations of the Secular
Last of the Red Hot Mohicans
Bad Rap for a Neck Scarf
Issues of passion and power in E.M. Hull's the sheik
Race, nation, class
Against race
Western Ethnocentrism and Perceptions of the Harem
The Story of Islamophobia
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,31 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2019 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |