This thesis examines the context in which the Russian composer, M. Balakirev, used folk idioms to create a representation of Circassian musical culture in Islamey: Oriental Fantasy. It was composed for piano in 1869 after Balakirev’s trip to the Caucasus during its colonization by the Russian Empire and it is an interesting example of a musical representation of the "Oriental." Based on Edward Said’s theory of the Orientalism, this thesis examines the construction of Circassian stereotype as Russia’s “Other”. It presents the complex historical relations between Russians and Circassians and discusses evidence for treating Islamey as an example of an Orientalist Other, taken from several authors, including Balakirev himself. Ultimately, this thesis describes Balakirev’s representation of Circassian culture and proposes reasons for his appropriation of folk music. It concludes by outlining the benefits of cultural exchanges between the Russian and Circassian nations that took place over the last century.

This dissertation examines the principal Japanese translations of Arthur Waley (1889-1966): Japanese Poetry: The Uta (1919), The No Plays of Japan (1921), and The Tale of Genji (1925-33). These works have been overlooked as English literature of the British modern period, although Waley intended most of his translations to function as modern English literature. I include a short biography of Waley's formative years and maintain that aspects of his identity—Jewish, bisexual, and socialist—were important in the choice of his occupation and in the selection and interpretation of his texts. I situate Japanese culture in the context of orientalism and Anglo-Japanese political relations. Japanese culture had a role to play in Anglo-Japanese imperialisms; this is demonstrated through an examination of the activities of the Japan Society of London, where Waley presented one of his first translations. The School of Oriental Studies in London also provided a platform for the translation and dissemination of Asian literature for the express purpose of promoting British imperial interests in the Far East. As an orientalist working through these institutions and the British Museum, Waley's positioning of himself as a Bloomsbury anti-imperialist was ambiguous. His texts, moreover, had a role to play in the presentation of Japan as an essentially aesthetic, 'feminine' nation. There are few letters, and no diaries or working papers of Waley. I rely, therefore, on his published works, as well as the memoirs, letters and biographies of family members and friends, especially those of the Bloomsbury Group with which he was associated. I make extensive use of the Transactions of the Japan Society and historical records of the School of Oriental Studies, as well as critical reviews of Waley and other translators. Social and cultural histories of the period are used to construct key. contexts: the Anglo-Jews, the Cambridge Fabians, British orientalism, and English modernism between the wars. Since I maintain that homoeroticism in Japanese literature was one of its attractions for Waley, I also look to queer theory to assist in my reading of Waley's texts. I conclude that The Tale of Genji enabled Waley to realize a personal ambition to write stories, and he produced a unique English novel that remains not only the most important modernist interpretation of Japanese culture between the wars, but a remarkable record of Edwardian-Bloomsbury language and aesthetic sensibility. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Jorge Asís's narrative voices are transformed from on text to another. The Arab-Argentine author creates multiple narrators that interact with one another to further develop their textual identities. Discussions of authorial and narrative voices often coalesce into broad statements of alter-egos and pseudonyms that do not fully consider the nexus between them with writing practices. This study analyzes the author-narrator and narrator-narrator bonds in Argentine Orientalist, Mahyar, Costumbrista, and Testimonial writing practices.

This research explored the stereotypical representations, images, and expectations surrounding the relationships of Filipino women and American men. Within the context of the mail-order bride phenomenon, Filipino women have been largely depicted as victims of racialized and gendered representations of mail-order bride agencies. Similarly, romantic relationships between Filipino women and American men are reduced to mere business at which romantic love and desire is absent. However, such depictions fail to acknowledge other factors at play with Filipino women’s intention to seek relationship with Western men. Within the Filipino society, Western men are constructed as better marriage partners in contrast to that of Filipino men. Findings revealed that the desire to seek relationships with one another is driven by their desire based on the preconceptions they perceive one another to possess.

Syftet med denna studie var att analysera hur västerländska nyhetsartiklar porträtterar vita terrorister, för att visa vad en orättvis och ojämlik medialskildring kan få för konsekvenser på både en strukturell och individuell nivå. Västerländsk nyhetsmedia tenderar att generellt porträttera vita och icke-vita människor annorlunda, vilket också är fallet gällande ämnet terrorism. Studien är kvalitativ och genomfördes med Teun A. van Dijks modell för kritisk diskursanalys. Det analyserade materialet bestod av sex artiklar beträffande tre fall av vita terrorister; Brenton Tarrant, Dylann Roof and Anders Behring Breivik. Resultatet visade att vita terrorister skildras i ett humaniserande ljus. Västerländsk nyhetsmedia är benägna att, i fall av vita terrorister, vara försiktiga vid användandet av ordet ”terrorist”. Västerländsk nyhetsmedia visar också en vilja att uppnå förståelse för terrorattackerna utförda av vita terrorister. Detta görs genom en redogörelse för terroristernas bakgrund, intressen och övergripande potentiella förklaringar till attackerna. Humaniseringen av vita terrorister är, särskilt ur teori-linsen orientalism, ett exempel på hur diskriminering, ur ett privilegierat perspektiv, förekommer i praktiken. / <p>2019-06-03</p>

Denna studie ämnar undersöka framställningen av den hinduiska och buddhistiska karmaläran i svenska läroböcker i religionskunskap för högstadiet och gymnasiet. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys undersöks innehållet i fem läroböcker i syfte att undersöka framställningens fokus och dess koppling till religionskunskapsämnets styrdokument. Genom att använda Edward Saids teori om orientalism undersöks också hur förhållandet mellan öst och väst kan ha påverkat framställningen av karmaläran. Analysen visar att den karmalära som framställs är handlingsfokuserad på ett sätt som skiljer sig från hur karmaläran studeras i akademin. Det är också en karmalära som är tydligt kopplad till hinduismens och buddhismens tro på återfödelse, med en större påverkan på återfödelsen än det nuvarande livet. Diskussionen av analysen når slutsatsen att karmaläran är en nödvändig del av undervisningen, samt att läroböckernas framställningar visar vissa tecken på ett orientalistiskt förhållningssätt till hinduiska och buddhistiska traditioner.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen har varit att undersöka hur muslimer, araber och islam representeras i två datorspel. I uppsatsen analyseras spelen Call of duty: Modern Warfare (2019) och Battlefield 1 (2016) med hjälp av en kritisk diskursanalys och teorin orientalism. Resultatet i den här uppsatsen visar på ett orientalistisk presentation av muslimer, araber och islam där negativa representationer förekommer i båda spelen. Spelets karaktärer, narrativ och platser visas ofta som negativa gentemot de västerländska idealet. Analysen visar dock på att spelutvecklarna har varit mer medvetna om att försöka göra mer positiv representation och försökt visa på detta i spelen.

Thesis advisor: Natana DeLong-Bas / Throughout history, the idea of “hidden wisdom” and “primordial truth” has been a perennial fixture of innovative or heterodox beliefs. Repeatedly, novel methods of thought, be they religious, political, or social, have been introduced as a product of a vaunted time and space: lost secrets of the Persian magi, rediscovered wisdom of Solomon, uncovered Egyptian mysteries, etc. This persistent trope begs examination, and highlights one of the oldest trends in human thought: to find legitimacy in tradition, imagined or otherwise. Furthermore, the literature seems to always point towards a land in the greater Middle East as the font of wisdom - even in the writings of people from the Middle East, who simply attribute works to peoples and lands different from their own. Finally, in more modern times, there is a tendency to lean upon the narrative of a lost past for purposes of cultivating a new national identity, especially by peoples grappling with the overbearing mantle of Arabness or the struggles of a stateless people. Overall, the lost golden ages of the Middle East serve as the ideal wellspring of legitimacy for unorthodox ideas regarding the divine, the state, and the nature of a people. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Middle Eastern Studies.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and discuss negative stereotypes of Muslims and supposed Muslims in fictive images and theorize what impact such images have on Muslims’ concept of the self. The purpose is also to discuss what consequences this can have for the multi-cultural classroom. To fulfill this purpose, five questions were created. The first one was to examine what ethnicities and nationalities appeared amongst the perpetrators in two Swedish series of criminal fiction and if some appeared more frequently than others. The second question was to see how Muslim perpetrators was portrayed and the third question was to examine how other Muslim characters was portrayed. The fourth question was to see if there were any differences in the portrayal of Muslim characters over time. The answers of the initiating four question acted as the ground for the fifth and final question: How can the conceptualization of the self be affected by the images of Muslims and what didactical relevance might it have for the multi-cultural classroom? The studied material consisted of 85 movies from two Swedish criminal series, Wallander and Beck, which were produced during the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.The reached conclusion is that the tendency for the filmmakers to portray Muslims as perpetrators is strengthened after 2001 and that Muslim characters often is portrayed as refugees, Islamic fundamentalists, criminals, and oppressed women. The study also shows that the film producers seem to be aware of the established negative stereotypes of Muslims and chooses to use them maybe to mislead the audience in order to amaze the viewer when the true perpetrators are revealed and/or to question the fairness of the stereotypes. The empirical material indicated that Muslim student’s self-image is affected by the conflict between the perceived reality and the negative image that prevails in Swedish society and the Muslim students experience a vulnerability in Swedish multicultural classrooms.

This thesis is a poststructural policy analysis, following the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) approach developed by Carol Bacchi (2016), of the Afghanistan Study Group final report: A Pathway for Peace in Afghanistan. Following the theoretical basis proposed by this method, the report is examined for discourses and power relations that construct the problem representation. The discourses identified of liberalism and ‘just war’ theory are shown to saturate the Afghanistan Study Group’s (ASG) report and can be traced through time, displayed by a genealogy of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (SCFR) hearings that took place between September, 11th, 2001 up until the ASG report was commissioned in 2019. It is argued that the peace recommendations and the analysis they are based upon are produced by the politicians and experts under a Western lens that perpetuates an Orientalist problem representation. The proposed lens, inspired by postcolonial theory, is argued to not only permeate the ASG report but also the mainstream peacebuilding discourse, among other fields which pertain to, and ultimately get in the way of, finding a pathway to peace.