Fashioning the Modern Middle East: Gender, Body, and Nation

(Paperback)

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In the first book to address the critical role of the (un)dressed body in the formation of the modern Middle East, these essays unveil contemporary struggles over nation, gender, modernity and post-modernity. Contributions from leading interdisciplinary scholars, exploring gender representation, photography, dress and visual culture, recount the role of the visible elite body in campaigns for gender and social emancipation, dress histories concerning early nationalist women and men, and legal frameworks used by those who seek to control the movement of gendered bodies. The result is a rich picture of a historical period and cultural landscape which brings dress and visual culture back into historical narratives of the modern Middle East. Recognising multiple modernities, multiple imperialisms and diverse regional experiences of post-colonialism, Fashioning the Modern Middle East contains a range of theoretical frameworks invaluable to students of fashion studies, Middle Eastern studies, anthropology, photography and gender. Bringing forward new primary material and re-investigating extant sources from new perspectives, this is the essential introduction to the role of the dressed and undressed body in the formation of the modern Middle East.

Reviews

These thoughtful essays on the historical meanings of dress, and what it might tell us about choices, compulsions, and self-representations, engage readers in the compelling work of interpretation. Narratives about power, these are also stories about visual archives: not only what they tell us, but how elusive they are. These scholars passion for the archives theyve allowed us to view is evident. Its a rich read. * Marilyn Booth, University of Oxford, UK *
Examining the corporeal Middle East, this innovative and multi-disciplinary volume explores different forms of representation of image on film and canvas, how both individuals and the state sought to fashion themselves, and the ways in which sartorial choice could be used to challenge established norms. * Kate Fleet, University of Cambridge, UK *
This volume sheds new light on the Middle East. The underlying theme throughout the essays is in order to claim modernity people had to be prepared to absorb into their daily lives all that they perceived as that which constituted the western modernity. The book makes fascinating reading uncovering a life which few westerners could envisage. * The Journal of Dress History *

Author Bio

Reina Lewis is Centenary Professor of Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK. She is author of Muslim Fashion (2015) and Rethinking Orientalism (2004), and editor of Modest Fashion (2013) and Gender, Modernity and Liberty (with Nancy Micklewright, 2006). Reina Lewis co-edits with Elizabeth Wilson the Dress Cultures Series at Bloomsbury Visual Arts. Yasmine Nachabe Taan is Associate Professor of Art & Design at the Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon.