TY - BOOK AU - Fieni,David TI - Decadent Orientalisms: The Decay of Colonial Modernity SN - 9780823286423 PY - 2020///] CY - New York, NY PB - Fordham University Press KW - Decadence (Literary movement) KW - France KW - Decadence in literature KW - Orientalism in literature KW - Orientalism KW - Regression (Civilization) in literature KW - Islamic Studies KW - Literary Studies KW - Middle Eastern Studies KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature KW - bisacsh KW - Arabic literature KW - Francophone literature KW - Islam KW - Maghreb KW - colonial modernity KW - decadence KW - language politics KW - philology KW - secularism N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Introduction. Orientalist decadence --; Part I. (Dis)integrating semitism: French and arabic in the twilight of the ottoman empire --; Chapter 1. French decadence, Arab awakenings: figures of decay in the nahda --; Chapter 2. Al- shidyaq’s decadent carnival --; Chapter 3. From dreyfus in the colony to céline’s anti- semitic style --; Part II. Working through postcolonial decadence --; Chapter 4. Resurrecting colonial decadence in independent Algeria --; Chapter 5. Algerian women and the invention of literary mourning --; Chapter 6. Virtual secularization: abdelwahab meddeb’s “walking cure” and the immigrant body in France --; Conclusion. Toward a contrapuntal double critique of colonial modernity --; Acknowledgments --; Notes --; Select bibliography --; Index; restricted access N2 - Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western discourses of Eastern decline and obsolescence together with Arab and Islamic responses in which the language of decadence returns as a characteristic of the West.Taking seriously Edward Said’s claim that Orientalism is a “style of having power,” Fieni works historically through the aesthetic and ideological effects of Orientalist style, showing how it is at once comparative, descriptive, and performative. Orientalism, the book argues, relies upon decadence as the figure through which its positivist scientific claims become redistributed as speech acts—“truths” that establish dominance. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a repertoire of clichés and stereotypes, Decadent Orientalisms considers the systemic epistemological consequences of the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism’s power UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823286423?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780823286423 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780823286423/original ER -