In this second blog I will discuss the hit Netflix original series Midnight Mass, from director Mike Flanagan, and how it incorporates Muslim beliefs as an integral part of the story. If you have not read my previous blog, I advise doing so as I discuss the concepts of analyzing post-9/11 horror stories there. If… Read more »
Stereotypes
“The ‘Phobias’ of Horror Pt.1: A Review of Muslim Representation in Sinister” by Isaiah Green
It seems prudent to recognize a shift in the horror genre with post-9/11 productions integrating more Orientalist and Xenophobic storytelling as a means of creating fear for their American audiences. Throughout various films and series, these tropes found popularity in several sub-genres, such as home invasions, secret cults, and exorcist stories that began to embody… Read more »
Muslim World Interactions and Battling Islamophobia by Derya Doğan
Despite a range of efforts by organizations such as Mipsterz, Pew Research Center, The Australian Muslim Women’s Center for Human Rights, and Muslim.sg to increase awareness about diversity of Muslims and Muslim cultures across the world, the stereotypical belief that all Muslims are Arabs, and all Arabs are Muslim, remains to be prominent. There is… Read more »
“Just One Night” A Critical Review II by Abigail Leonard
While the opposite can be argued, I feel that “Just One Night” addresses an otherness felt by some of the young Muslims in the West. It has an opening scene with two hijabi friends trying to fix their headscarves in a manner that makes them stand out less in the bathroom of a bar where… Read more »
“Just One Night” A Critical Review I by Rachel Tagoulla
In the mini movie “Just One Night”, two headscarf-wearing Muslim women go out to a bar to experience bar life for “just one night.” The protagonist’s friend claims she has never been to this bar before; however, the protagonist discovers her friend is a regular at the bar after seeing her picture on the wall…. Read more »
Hijab in Sports: Bilqis Abdul Qaadir Visits IU with Messages of Empowerment and Spirituality for Muslim Women by Narmeen Ijaz
Hijab (Veil) is a term which has multiple images associated with it. For some it might bring to surface images of the ongoing protests in Iran by women to end the mandatory hijab, while for others, it might recall images of Muslim women in France fighting against the Hijab ban. Such duality of the meaning… Read more »
Being Muslim vs. Looking Islamic by Derya Doğan
A couple summers ago, I ran into an elderly couple who had done decades of Christian missionary work in Australia. They were looking for my neighbors, who were from Turkiye. When I said that I too was from Turkiye, the wife told me “But you do not look Islamic” since I was wearing a sleeveless… Read more »
Belly Dance in Islamic Worlds by Meg Morley
Most of the time, when someone unfamiliar with belly dance encounters me and my research on the changing belly dance industry in Egypt, they are surprised, confused, and struggle to even formulate the question they want to ask. What they want to know is something like, “How does a culture as conservative and repressive of… Read more »
Islam and Modern Challenges by Flamur Vehapi
The Need to Deconstruct the Dominant Narratives about Islam and Muslims Nowadays, many Orientalists, among others, speak of Islam as if it began in the late 1970s with the Iranian Revolution or in the 1990s with the rise of certain radical groups in some parts of the Muslim world, or as is now the case… Read more »
Islamophobia through the eyes of a young Iraqi by Rose Hattab
As a first-generation Muslim and Arab woman living in post-9/11 United States, some of the mainstream discourse in America has been consistently packed with Islamophobic stereotypes and rhetoric. It is not a surprise that ever since the tragedy of 9/11, hate crimes towards Muslims and Middle Easterners in the United States have risen based on… Read more »