Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1. The Cultural Politics of “the Middle East” in the Americas: An Introduction 3 Ella Shohat and Evelyn Alsultany 2. The Sephardi-Moorish Atlantic: Between Orientalism and Occidentalism 42 Ella Shohat Nation, Culture, and Representation 3. Mahjar Legacies: A Reinterpretation 65 Jacob Berman 4. Turcos in the Mix: Corrupting Arabs in Brazil’s Racial Democracy 80 John Tofik Karam 5. From “Baisanos” to Billionaires: Locating Arabs in Mexico 96 Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp 6. Ali Bla Bla’s Double-Edged Sword: Argentine President Carlos Menem and the Negotiation of Identity 108 Christina Civantos 7. They Hate Our Freedom, But We Love Their Belly Dance: The Spectacle of the Shimmy in Contemporary U.S. Culture 130 Amira Jarmakani 8. From Arab Terrorists to Patriotic Arab Americans: Representational Strategies in Post-9/11 TV Dramas 153 Evelyn Alsultany viii / Contents 9. When Pakistanis Became Middle Eastern: Visualizing Racial Targets in the Global War on Terror 176 Junaid Rana Diaspora, Transnation, and Translation 10. “A Strip, A Land, A Blaze”: Arab American Hip-Hop and Transnational Politics 195 Sunaina Maira 11. Muslim Digital Diasporas and the Gay Pornographic Cyber Imaginary 214 Karim Tartoussieh 12. Drawing the Line: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy as It Unfolded in Denmark and the United States 231 Helle Rytkønen 13. Turcophobia or Turcophilia: Politics of Representing Arabs in Latin America 252 Heba El Attar 14. User-Friendly Islams: Translating Rumi in France and the United States 264 Ziad Elmarsafy 15. “Axising” Iran: The Politics of Domestication and Cultural Translation 282 R. Shareah Taleghani 16. “The Uneven Bridge of Translation”: Turkey in between East and West 299 Shouleh Vatanabadi Contributors 319 Index 323 ...