Reading Arabia: British Orientalism in the Age of Mass Publication, 1880-1930

by Andrew Long

Overview

Reading Arabia traces the evolving tradition of British Orientalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining the role of mass print culture in constructing the British public's perception of "Arabia." Long brings together close readings and ideological analyses of primary texts by Richard Burton, Charles Doughty, Robert Cunninghame Graham, Marmaduke Pickthall, and T. E. Lawrence, along with pamphlets, journalism and commentary, silent films, stage spectacles, and travel literature. Through these texts, Long examines the fantasy of the Orient and its constitutive function. Building on the pioneering work of Edward Said, Reading Arabia looks beyond foreign policy debates and issues of human rights to show how British Orientalism is rooted in words and phrases of a popular culture that shaped the way the public read and imagined the Arab world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815633235
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	02/21/2014
Series:	Contemporary Issues in the Middle East
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew C. Long currently teaches in the Department of Cultural Studies at the Claremont Graduate University. His articles have appeared in Studies in the Novel and Prose Studies.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Britain at the Fin de Siècle and the Orientalist Unconscious 1

1 The Two Tangents of British Orientalism: Burton and Doughty, Dandy and Prophet in the 1880s 31

2 Khartoum Nightmare: Popular Literature of the British Campaign in the Sudan 75

3 A Refusal and a Traversal: Robert Cunninghame Graham's Engagement with Orientalism in Mogreb-el-Acksa 99

4 Orientalism from Within and Without Marmaduke Pickthall 130

5 The Arabist as Abject Modem T. E. Lawrence 166

Conclusion: How to Read the Orientalist Archive 195

Notes 219

Bibliography 239

Index 253

Editorial Reviews

Long has produced a work that looks at Orientalism in a new way by foregrounding the popular over the erudite and the elitist; such a focused reading of the impact of Orientalism on mass culture in general and Arabian travel literature in particular has for some time been overdue.

International Journal of Middle East Studies

Both literary and historical in its approach, Long's investigation revives the old debates about orientalism that scholars continue to grapple with in one form or another as an always-present agent of cultural hegemony.

Victorian Studies

Reading the works of such prominent figures as Burton, Doughty, and Lawrence, Long makes a compelling argument about the productive function of the Oriental fantasy in mass culture and consumer economy of the late Empire.

author of Belated Travelers: Orientalism in th Ali Behdad

Long's book provides a vivid picture of the social and intellectual atmospheres within which British travelers swanned, splashed and stumbled through history.

Simon Fraser University Ken Seigneurie

The typical reader is likely to gain a deeper understanding about the ways Orientalist ideas have penetrated popular culture right up to the present. . . . A very important book.

Eric Hooglund

A wide-ranging, knowledgeable survey of some of the most colorful, yet sometimes inexplicably forgotten, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British travelers in the Levant. He has mastered the personal and intellectual biographies of well-known personalities such as Burton, Doughty and T. E. Lawrence, but also those of lesser known writers such as Robert Cunninghame Graham and Marmaduke Pickthall. He fleshes out the stereotype of the 'white man abroad' by embedding these individuals in their historical contexts and allowing us to see their flawed, quirky and sometimes heroic humanity. . . . Long's book provides a vivid picture of the social and intellectual atmospheres within which British travelers swanned, splashed and stumbled through history.

Ken Seigneurie