Colonial Fantasies
Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism

This 1998 book is a feminist and post-colonial examination of Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient.

Meyda Yegenoglu (Author)

9780521626583, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 April 1998

196 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.427 kg

In this 1998 book, Meyda Yegenoglu investigates the intersection between post-colonial and feminist criticism, focusing on the Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient. She examines the veil as a site of fantasy and of nationalist ideologies and discourses of gender identity, analyzing travel literature, anthropological and literary texts to reveal the hegemonic, colonial identity of the desire to penetrate the veiled surface of 'otherness'. Representations of cultural difference and sexual difference are shown to be inextricably linked, and the figure of the Oriental woman to have functioned as the veiled interior of Western identity.

Introduction
1. Mapping the field of colonial discourse
2. Veiled fantasies: cultural and sexual difference in the discourse of orientalism
3. Supplementing the Orientalist lack: European ladies in the harem
4. Sartorial fabric-action: enlightenment and Western feminism
5. The battle of the veil: women between Orientalism and nationalism.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]