IMPERIAL FICTIONS

Rana Kabbani unravels Western fantasies and myths about the East which were woven over the ages. Devised during the Crusades to comb at Islam, then confirmed by centuries of Western writers and artists, these myths fostered racial and sexual stereotypes that became vital to imperial designs. In Orientalist travelogues and paintings, the British and the French conceived of an erotic and sinister East, one that they believed to be morally inferior and dangerous, and therefore ripe for colonisation. Such perceptions remain ver y much a...[Read more]