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Harem Fantasies and Music Videos: Contemporary Orientalist Representation
W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2007 Harem Fantasies and Music Videos: Contemporary Orientalist Representation Maya Ayana Johnson College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation Johnson, Maya Ayana, "Harem Fantasies and Music Videos: Contemporary Orientalist Representation" (2007). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539626527. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-nf9f-6h02 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Harem Fantasies and Music Videos: Contemporary Orientalist Representation Maya Ayana Johnson Richmond, Virginia Master of Arts, Georgetown University, 2004 Bachelor of Arts, George Mason University, 2002 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts American Studies Program The College of William and Mary August 2007 APPROVAL PAGE This Thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Maya Ayana Johnson Approved by the Committee, February 2007 y - W ^ ' _■■■■■■ Committee Chair Associate ssor/Grey Gundaker, American Studies William and Mary Associate Professor/Arthur Krrtght, American Studies Cpllege of William and Mary Associate Professor K im b erly Phillips, American Studies College of William and Mary ABSTRACT In recent years, a number of young female pop singers have incorporated into their music video performances dance, costuming, and musical motifs that suggest references to dance, costume, and musical forms from the Orient. -
Introduction Everyday Coexistence in the Post-Ottoman Space
Introduction Everyday Coexistence in the Post-Ottoman Space REBECCA BRYANT In 1974 they started tormenting us, for instance we’d pick our apples and they’d come and take them right out of our hands. Because we had property we held on as long as we could, we didn’t want to leave, but fi nally we were afraid of being killed and had to fl ee. … We weren’t able to live there, all night we would stand by the windows waiting to see if they were going to kill us. … When we went to visit [in 2003, after the check- points dividing the island opened], they met us with drums as though nothing had happened. In any case the older elderly people were good, we used to get along with them. We would eat and drink together. —Turkish Cypriot, aged 89, twice displaced from a mixed village in Limassol district, Cyprus In a sophisticated portrayal of the confl ict in Cyprus in the 1960s, Turkish Cypriot director Derviş Zaim’s feature fi lm Shadows and Faces (Zaim 2010) shows the degeneration of relations in one mixed village into intercommunal violence. Zaim is himself a displaced person, and he based his fi lm on his extended family’s experiences of the confl ict and on information gathered from oral sources. Like anthropologist Tone Bringa’s documentary We Are All Neighbours (Bringa 1993), fi lmed at the beginning of the Yugoslav War and showing in real time the division of a village into warring factions, Zaim’s fi lm emphasizes the anticipa- tion of violence and attempts to show that many people, under the right circumstances, could become killers. -
In the Name of Krishna: the Cultural Landscape of a North Indian Pilgrimage Town
In the Name of Krishna: The Cultural Landscape of a North Indian Pilgrimage Town A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sugata Ray IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Frederick M. Asher, Advisor April 2012 © Sugata Ray 2012 Acknowledgements They say writing a dissertation is a lonely and arduous task. But, I am fortunate to have found friends, colleagues, and mentors who have inspired me to make this laborious task far from arduous. It was Frederick M. Asher, my advisor, who inspired me to turn to places where art historians do not usually venture. The temple city of Khajuraho is not just the exquisite 11th-century temples at the site. Rather, the 11th-century temples are part of a larger visuality that extends to contemporary civic monuments in the city center, Rick suggested in the first class that I took with him. I learnt to move across time and space. To understand modern Vrindavan, one would have to look at its Mughal past; to understand temple architecture, one would have to look for rebellions in the colonial archive. Catherine B. Asher gave me the gift of the Mughal world – a world that I only barely knew before I met her. Today, I speak of the Islamicate world of colonial Vrindavan. Cathy walked me through Mughal mosques, tombs, and gardens on many cold wintry days in Minneapolis and on a hot summer day in Sasaram, Bihar. The Islamicate Krishna in my dissertation thus came into being. -
Role of the Muslim Anjumans for the Promotion of Education in the Colonial Punjab: a Historical Analysis
Bulletin of Education and Research December 2019, Vol. 41, No. 3 pp. 1-18 Role of the Muslim Anjumans for the Promotion of Education in the Colonial Punjab: A Historical Analysis Maqbool Ahmad Awan* __________________________________________________________________ Abstract This article highlightsthe vibrant role of the Muslim Anjumans in activating the educational revival in the colonial Punjab. The latter half of the 19th century, particularly the decade 1880- 1890, witnessed the birth of several Muslim Anjumans (societies) in the Punjab province. These were, in fact, a product of growing political consciousness and desire for collective efforts for the community-betterment. The Muslims, in other provinces, were lagging behind in education and other avenues of material prosperity. Their social conditions were also far from being satisfactory. Religion too had become a collection of rites and superstitions and an obstacle for their educational progress. During the same period, they also faced a grievous threat from the increasing proselytizing activities of the Christian Missionary societies and the growing economic prosperity of the Hindus who by virtue of their advancement in education, commerce and public services, were emerging as a dominant community in the province. The Anjumans rescued the Muslim youth from the verge of what then seemed imminent doom of ignorance by establishing schools and madrassas in almost all cities of the Punjab. The focus of these Anjumans was on both secular and religious education, which was advocated equally for both genders. Their trained scholars confronted the anti-Islamic activities of the Christian missionaries. The educational development of the Muslims in the Colonial Punjab owes much to these Anjumans. -
1 Introducing the Chief Harem Eunuch
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10829-5 — The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem Jane Hathaway Excerpt More Information 1 Introducing the Chief Harem Eunuch Let’s start with the cover illustration. It shows the most powerful Chief Harem Eunuch in Ottoman history, el-Hajj Beshir Agha, leading three sons of Sultan Ahmed III through the Third Court of Topkapı Palace. The year is 1720. The princes are about to be circumcised in the Circumcision Room in the palace’s Fourth Court. Each of them is held on either side by a vizier, or government minister. Beshir Agha is right at the front of the painting, flush with the picture frame. Even the grand vizier, supposedly the most powerful figure in the Ottoman Empire at the time, walks behind him, holding the right arm of the oldest prince. What is the message of this painting? El-Hajj Beshir Agha is the most powerful person in the palace, more powerful than the grand vizier or any of the princes. He holds the princes’ fates and, by implication, the fate of the empire in his hands. But he also guards the barrier separating the princes and the viziers from the viewer. In this sense, he is both a central figure and a marginal figure, both the master of the princes and viziers and their servant. He is also the only dark-skinned figure in the painting, yet he is leading all the pale-skinned figures. Does this image seem contradictory? It should. The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Empire’s imperial harem embodied all these contradictions. -
Women and Power: Female Patrons of Architecture in 16Th and 17Th Century Istanbul1
Women and Power: Female Patrons of Architecture in 16th and 17th Century Istanbul1 Firuzan Melike Sümertas ̧ Anadolu University, Eskisehir, ̧ TÜRKlYE ̇ The aim of this paper is to discuss and illustrate the visibility of Ottoman imperial women in relation to their spatial presence and contribution to the architecture and cityscape of sixteenth and seventeenth century Istanbul. The central premise of the study is that the Ottoman imperial women assumed and exercised power and influence by various means but became publicly visible and acknowledged more through architectural patronage. The focus is on Istanbul and a group of buildings and complexes built under the sponsorship of court women who resided in the Harem section of Topkapı Palace. The case studies built in Istanbul in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are examined in terms of their location in the city, the layout of the complexes, the placement and plan of the individual buildings, their orientation, mass characteristics and structural properties. It is discussed whether female patronage had any recognizable consequences on the Ottoman Classical Architecture, and whether female patrons had any impact on the building process, selection of the site and architecture. These complexes, in addition, are discussed as physical manifestation and representation of imperial female power. Accordingly it is argued that, they functioned not only as urban regeneration projects but also as a means to enhance and make imperial female identity visible in a monumental scale to large masses in different parts of the capital. Introduction Historical study, since the last quarter of the 20th The study first summarizes outlines the role of women century has concentrated on recognizing, defining, in the Ottoman society. -
“The Battle for the Enlightenment”: Rushdie, Islam, and the West
i “The Battle for the Enlightenment”: Rushdie, Islam, and the West Adam Glyn Kim Perchard PhD University of York English and Related Literature August 2014 ii iii Abstract In the years following the proclamation of the fatwa against him, Salman Rushdie has come to view the conflict of the Rushdie Affair not only in terms of a struggle between “Islam” and “the West”, but in terms of a “battle for the Enlightenment”. Rushdie’s construction of himself as an Enlightened war-leader in the battle for a divided world has proved difficult for many critics to reconcile with the Rushdie who advocates “mongrelization” as a form of life-giving cultural hybridity. This study suggests that these two Rushdies have been in dialogue since long before the fatwa. It also suggests that eighteenth-century modes of writing and thinking about, and with, the Islamic East are far more integral to the literary worlds of Rushdie’s novels than has previously been realised. This thesis maps patterns of rupture and of convergence between representations of the figures of the Islamic despot and the Muslim woman in Shame, The Satanic Verses, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and the changing ways in which these figures were instrumentalised in eighteenth-century European literatures. Arguing that many of the harmful binaries that mark the way Rushdie and others think about Islam and the West hardened in the late eighteenth century, this study folds into the fable of the fatwa an account of European literary engagements with the Islamic world in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. -
A Case Study of Shalimar Garden
Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University ISSN: 1007-1172 Garden system in Kashmir history: A Case study of shalimar Garden 1Sabeen Ahmad Sofi & 2Mohd Ashraf Research Scholar, Research Scholar, Department of History, Department of Political-Science Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalya, Jabalpur, (India) Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalya, Jabalpur, (India) [email protected] & [email protected] Abstract: The history of garden creation doesn’t go back the Mughals in valley; instead its history goes back to earlier period. The garden tradition improved by sultans of Kashmir and also the Mughals took it to new heights. During Muslim period in valley, the kings were very fond of laying gardens and to construct structures, Howere a similar structures are currently a region of history. Mughal rulers in Kashmir valley laid beautiful gardens throughout length and breadth with vast experience and exposure of Persian garden system. Kashmir opened up a new world and released a flood of creativity to the Mughals whom the making of gardens was a ruling passion. Key words: Ancient, Charm,Garden, Floriculture, Persian, Passion. INTRODUCTION: The kashmir has a long history of garden making, in ancient times, the kings of kashmir laid beautiful gardens from time to time and planted shady trees to add to beauty and Charm of kashmir. Alberuni says that kashmir as so distinctively famous for its floriculture that the worship of somnath linga as considered incomplete without offering it the water of Ganga and the flowers of kashmir. So every day flowers were exported from Kashmir to india 1. In 1339 A.D. with the establishment of sultanate in Kashmir, there ushered in a new era in the garden tradition of kashmir and these Sultans were very fond of laying gardens and to construct structures, however a similar structures are now a part of history. -
Tales of a Medieval Cairene Harem: Domestic Life in Al-Biqa≠‘|'S Autobiographical Chronicle
LI GUO UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME Tales of a Medieval Cairene Harem: Domestic Life in al-Biqa≠‘|'s Autobiographical Chronicle Among the findings of recent scholarship on medieval Arabic autobiography1 is a reaffirmation, or redefinition, of the long-held notion that the realm of "private" life was "never the central focus of pre-modern Arabic autobiographical texts."2 To address this paradoxical contradiction between the business of "self- representation" and the obvious lack of "private" material in such texts, four sets of recurring features have been identified to help in uncovering the "modes" the medieval Arabic authors used to construct their individual identities: portrayals of childhood failures, portrayals of emotion through the description of action, dream narratives as reflections of moments of authorial anxiety, and poetry as a discourse of emotion.3 Other related areas, such as domestic life, gender, and sexuality, are largely left out. The "autobiographical anxiety," after all, has perhaps more to do with the authors' motivations to pen elaborate portrayals, in various literary conventions, of themselves as guardians of religious learning and respected community members (and in some cases, to settle scores with their enemies and rivals) than self-indulgence and exhibitionist "individuating." In this regard, a good example is perhaps the universally acclaimed autobiographical travelogue, the Rih˝lah of Ibn Bat¸t¸u≠t¸ah (d. 770/1368), who married and divorced over a period of thirty years of globetrotting more than twenty women and fathered, and eventually abandoned, some seventy children. However, little, if any, information is provided © Middle East Documentation Center. The University of Chicago. -
The Spatial Politics in the Craft of Postcolonial Indian Muslim Women
90 / JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND AESTHETICS The Spatial Politics in the Craft of Postcolonial Indian Muslim Women Novelists: Reading Shama Futehally’s Tara Lane, Samina Ali’s Madras in Rainy Days and Anjum Hasan’s The Cosmopolitans SABREEN AHMED Abstract: In the large framework of Indian English Fiction, writings by Muslim women novelists often find lesser engagements of critical enquiry and readership outside the marginalized domain of minority narrative studies. This paper locates the discursive positioning of the postcolonial Muslim women subjects in the selected texts in their traditional space in conformation to patriarchal structures, as well as postmodern space which tends to subvert these foundational structures. In the postmodern space the female subject is out of zenana but her fragmented self is still within its ideological barriers. The leading women in the texts rather than adhering to their religiosity yearn for liberation and seek authentic self-expression which at most instances is only partially allowed. The issue at hand is to understand on the one hand their religious identity as Muslim woman while at the same time to grasp the specificity of their claims to act as modern subjects situated in the time of political and cultural modernity, The selected works in this context are Tara Lane by Shama Futehally, Samina Ali’s Madras in Rainy Days and Anjum Hasan’s The Cosmopolitans that dwell with the nuances of conforming and combating restrictive discourses that define womanhood and female space of the zenana. Keywords: Zenana, Muslim woman, Space, Religion n the large and expanding sphere of Indian English Fiction, writings by Muslim women Inovelists often find lesser engagements of critical enquiry and readership outside the marginalized domain of minority narrative studies. -
Before the Odalisque: Renaissance Representations of Elite Ottoman Women Heather Madar
Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2011, vol. 6 Before the Odalisque: Renaissance Representations of Elite Ottoman Women Heather Madar he much-mythologized harem of the Ottoman sultans occupied a Tcentral place in European Orientalist thought for centuries.1 The harem, presented as an exotic world of forbidden sexuality inhabited by compliant yet sexually voracious women, appears in literature, art, and travel writing. While the most famous expressions of this harem fixa- tion date from later centuries,2 a focus on the harem as libidinous zone is demonstrably present in written sources from the sixteenth century. Yet an exploration of sixteenth-century European images turns up a surprising dearth of imagery in this vein. While Renaissance art lacks the languid odalisques or detailed views of the physical environment of the sultan’s harem familiar from later works, a series of largely overlooked representa- tions of elite Ottoman women do exist. Dating from the mid-sixteenth century, these images feature imagined portraits of sultanas — elite women such as Ottoman princesses, the sultan’s mother (valide sultan), or the sul- tan’s preferred concubine (haseki).3 Hurrem, the wife of sultan Süleyman, and his daughter Mihrimah appear most frequently in this genre. Yet strik- ing differences are immediately evident between their depiction and later, more familiar, views of the harem and harem women. The women shown in the Renaissance tradition were members of the sultan’s harem, yet they are not shown within a harem setting, nor do the images make reference to it. Although they are visually marked as Other, largely through the atten- tion given to their exotic dress, they are also presented as women who are of interest as individuals, possessing status and political significance. -
Women at the Mughal Court Perception & Reality
Women at the Mughal Court Perception & Reality What assumptions or questions do you have about the women depicted in the following nine paintings? What was life like in the zenana or women’s quarters? How much freedom did they have? With our new online catalogue we are drawing attention to this under-explored area. We look at the fascinating lives and achievements of these women, and how they have been represented, or misrepresented. Women at the Mughal Court Perception & Reality When we look at cat. 1, ‘A Princess is attended by her Women’, one can imagine how such an image could be misinterpreted. For centuries, the women of the Mughal court and the space of the zenana (the women’s quarters of a household) in particular have often been neglected by art historians and represented by European visitors and later writers and artists in Orientalist terms. This is the idea of the ‘exotic’ harem as a place of purely sensuous languor, where thousands of nubile young women are imprisoned and lead restricted lives as sex objects, full of jealousy and frustration. As we might expect, the truth is far more complex, rich, and surprising. Certainly, as the wonderful details of cat. 1 attest, the highest-ranking women of this society enjoyed an extremely sophisticated luxury and beauty culture. Our princess’ every need is being attended to: women on the left bring her fruit and a covered cup with a drink; one woman shampoos her feet to cool them while others hold a peacock, a morchhal, attend the incense burner, and sing and play on the tambura as musical accompaniment.