The Homoerotics of Orientalism
Monday ,30 May, 2016
Chair: Prof. Moshe Sluhovsky
Lecturer: Prof. Joseph A. Boone
Participants: Commentary: Dr. Sivan Balslev
One of the largely untold stories of Orientalism is the degree to which the Middle East has been associated with male homosexuality by scores of Western travelers, historians, writers and artists for well over 400 years. Examining European accounts of sites such as Istanbul and Egypt as hotbeds of forbidden desire, juxtaposing Ottoman homoerotic genres and their European imitators, and unlocking the homoerotic encoding in Persian miniatures and Orientalist paintings, Boone models an ethics of cross-cultural reading that illuminates the critical role played by homoeroticism and homophobia in shaping the relation of Middle East and West to this day.