Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister

Abstract

Minoo Moallem challenges the mainstream stereotypical representation of Islam and Muslims as backward, fanatical, and premodern by showing how Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism are by-products of modernity. Writing with a deep personal and scholarly concern for recent Iranian history, Moallem refers to the gendered notions of brother and sister as keys to understanding the invention of the Islamic ummat as a modern fraternal community. Using magazines, novels, and films, she offers a feminist transnational analysis of contemporary Iranian culture that questions dominant binaries of modern and traditional, West and East, secular and religious, and civilized and barbaric. Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister responds to a number of important questions raised in connection with 9/11. The author considers how veiling intersects with other identity markers in nation-state building and modern formations of gendered citizenship. She shows how Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism are fed by a hybrid blend of images and myths of both pre-Islamic and Islamic Iran, as well as globally circulated patriarchal ideologies.

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