Wars for Oil
Moby-Dick, Orientalism, and Cold-War Criticism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8895941 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jean-François Leroux (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 423-442 |
| Publication date | 2009-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Review of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-7720 • E-ISSN: 1710-114X |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/cras.39.4.423 |
| OpenAlex | W4255151221 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
Beginning with Edward Said's reflections on the media fall-out post 9/11, the ideological representations of which he likens to the mythical drama enacted in Moby-Dick, the article goes on to revisit the consensus achieved in Cold-War criticism of the novel in light of our awareness of the cultural construction of recent events. Specifically, the article questions the dichotomizing of the novel in terms of East and West and the critical casting of Fedallah and Ahab as scapegoats for collective guilt, drawing on the work of René Girard on the subject. In this way, it confirms the analogical justness of Said's evocation of Moby-Dick in relation to America's “collective imagination” of its relationship to the Near East and argues the book's power to re-orient and subvert that very representation by revealing both its mythical core and the collective acts of violence it seeks to conceal or sanction
Art · Criticism · Drama · Ideology · Literature · Orientalism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Relation (database · Representation (politics · Subject (documents · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Law · Modern American Literature Studies · Philosophy · Violence, Religion, and Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,09 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2015 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |