This paper aims to investigate how subjects of colonialism and post-colonialism attempt to make themselves visible when they were shamed into being invisible at an experiential and representational level or represented as the objects of visual pleasure and/or desire for the colonizer. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Orientalist writers and artists such as Antoine Galland and Jean-Léon Gérôme greatly influenced the Western image of the Muslim woman as passive and silent, with her veil becoming a primary trope in the construction of the “Oriental” feminine. In a postcolonial era, the veil became a uniform with a dual purpose it limited a woman’s visibility in the public sphere while also protecting them from potential shameful encounters. By examining photographs taken by Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj and his ‘Kesh Angels series in particular, I argue that the photographed women, each wearing a veil and djellabah, strategically re-appropriate the characteristics that have come to define – and even erase – their identities in order to counter the effects of shame in a postcolonial society. Thus, these veiled women become active participants in producing their visibility and the sartorial inconsistencies they present, from exposed legs to transparent veils, create alternative understandings of modernity through subversion. The women’s postures are also reminiscent of those found in odalisque paintings done by Eugène Delacroix and Henri Matisse and inspired by their travels to North Africa in the nineteenth century. Thus, both the photographer and photographed subjects offer a counterpoint to the legacy of Orientalist and colonialist stereotypes of the exoticized Muslim woman. By donning traditional attire with counterfeit emblems of Western, consumerist logos such as Nike and Louis Vuitton, the artist and his subjects force the Western viewer to confront their preconceived notions of the “East” while showcasing a different perspective on both femininity and contemporary Moroccan culture.

One of the puzzles that faced French colonization in Tunisia was the inaccessibility of Tunisian women to the French man’s gaze. In order to break this barrier between colonizer and colonized, periodicals offered a forum for both sides to express their viewpoints and display their opposing agendas. From the French point of view, Tunisian women were in need of feminism to liberate them. The example of the French doctor Charles Lemanski’s article “La psychologie de la femme Arabe: la pudeur” (1899) demonstrates the negative portrayal of “the Arab woman” or “the Muslim woman” who stands in binary opposition to the superior French/Christian woman. Lemanski refers to Tunisian women as “les éternelles invisibles” (The eternally invisible). The women’s literary periodical Leïla (1936-1941) proves that this “invisibility” is a colonial shaming mechanism and a myth at its best. Applying Leila Ahmad’s notion of “colonial feminism,” this article argues that Tunisians made use of the periodical Leïla to respond to the process of shaming that the French undertook in order to inflict guilt upon men and women for their traditionalism carried out through women’s bodies and the fact that gender constructs did not conform to those of the dominant imperialist culture. Using Mary Louise Pratt’s notions of “Imperial eyes” I argue that Tunisians employed the veil to counter the shaming orientalist discourse of the French, which made use of colonial feminism to further serve their imperialist project. The resistance and resentment of Tunisians to the shaming of women through colonial feminism comes forward when Tahar Haddad, considered the pillar of Tunisian modern feminism after independence, is attacked for his book Imra’atuna fī al-sharī‘a wa al-mujtama‘ (Our women in Sharia and Society) which appeared in 1930, after the 1929 debates regarding the veil. This work was contentious to the point that Haddad was dismissed from the Zeïtuna religious establishment. I contend that the nationalist state-sponsored Bourguibian feminist model put forth after independence, mirrors the internalization of colonial shaming as it covertly linked the veil to lower-class rural women. As a modernist/feminist state-sponsored discourse was promoted through Faïza (1959-1967) for example, the internalization of the shaming practices are covertly present as the veil becomes synonymous with backwardness. A close examination of the women’s periodical gives evidence of how Tunisian feminist modernity rooted itself in colonial feminism. Tunisian “modern” women resembled their French “sisters” as portrayed in texts and images.

Israel’s tourism industry, growing each year, contributes significantly to the country’s GDP and relies on the continued control of Palestinian land not only through military occupation but the presence of social and cultural institutions that stake claim to this territory. Simultaneously, Israel incorporates Palestinians, whether citizens and occupied subjects, into the national milieu as portrayed to tourists both through its employees and projections of “good Arabs” in its curated experiences. Drawing from traditions of postcolonial and affect theories, I aim to analyze how employees navigate tacit denials of identity and how—and whether—feelings of shame play into realities of working-class Palestinians whose financial sustenance relies on the affirmation of an ongoing settler-colonial project. Often passing through military checkpoints, scaling the 8 meter-high separation wall, or traveling to settlements in order to reach jobs, Palestinians working in the tourism industry routinely risk their wellbeing to support an industry that affirms Jewish right to the territory, history, and discourses of belonging from which they are excluded. In conjunction with an organized panel addressing themes of postcolonial shame, my research will aim to address the ways in which Palestinians employed in touristic ventures in Israel/Palestine tailored to the narratives of both Israeli and diasporic Jewish tourists confront the erasure of Palestinian narratives. I will pay particular attention to those who engage in the visual and experiential transmission of visual culture, media, and sensual traditions, including artisans and souvenir merchants, Naqab Bedouins whose livelihoods rely on providing young Jewish-American tourists ostensible exotic desert excursions, and the families whose villages serve as weekend culinary getaways for Israelis, offering “authentic” Arab experiences. In order to consider tourism within the larger scope of Israeli visual culture, I will look at advertising schemes that portray these excursions and the ways in which Arab authenticity is portrayed. Drawing from traditions of postcolonial and affect theories, I aim to analyze how employees navigate tacit denials of identity and how—and whether—feelings of shame play into the realities of working-class Palestinians whose financial sustenance relies on the affirmation of ongoing an settler-colonial project. In terms of labor, what are the bodily effects of conforming to the particular state-sponsored narrative of indigineity? In what ways do conforming to the expectations of tourists dictate the way in which the employee carries herself and speaks to the concept of communal affinity?

A mid-century Quran exegete, Amīn al-Khūlī has been rarely studied in Arabic or in English and has fallen through the disciplinary cracks of Quranic Studies. An influential thinker and a postcolonial advocate of anti-Eurocentrism and anti-Traditionalism, al-Khūlī’s main goal which he outlines in Manāhij Tajdīd (Methods of Innovation) is to create a radical restructuring of Islamic thought through a rigorous epistemic methodology that decolonizes the study of the Qur’ān and Classical Arabic from the recalcitrant mythologies of a hegemonic religious discourse. Al-Khulī’s method consists of a literary approach to the Qur’ān which examines it from two angles simultaneously: intrinsic and extrinsic. The intrinsic aspect of Quranic exegesis include a thorough analysis of figuration, style, and linguistic specificities. The extrinsic component consists of studying the history of the Qur’ān, including chronicling as the geography of revelation as well as other related Quranic sciences. Confronting political, traditionalist, and Eurocentric tools of knowledge production, al-Khūlī’s philological rationalism makes him one of the most revolutionary anti-colonial intellectuals in the Arab world who challenged al-Azhar, the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasserism, and European modernity, all at once. Critics of al-Khūlī fail to see that a crucial aspect of his theory is what could be loosely termed “the psychology of reception.” Anchoring the relationship between the Prophet and the Revelation in a psychological aesthetics of reception makes for one of the most innovative theories for asbāb al-nuzūl (Divine Causes/ Promptings of Revelation) to have originated in the last century. Al-Khūlī’s legacy invites us to investigate the grand context of colonialism and modernity, while his legacy still raises a number of vexed questions. Is the desire to deconstruct a reified and radicalized religious discourse itself a boomerang reaction to colonial modernity, that is, a critical and scientific return to fountain sources in order to liberate the “Islamic mind” from shameful mythologies à la Ibn Khaldūn? Or does this theoretical undertaking simply fall under a Fanonian or Bhabhan theory of colonial mimicry and is therefore nothing but a Manichean transfer of “la mission civilatrice” from a colonizing self to a colonized other? Is it a self-surgical look backward, or inward, namely with Eurocentric eyes, at a convoluted and archaic tradition that needs to be ‘smoothened out’ and rendered compatible with the so-called liberal, progressive, and secular practices of institutionalized European modernity? In other words, are we facing a re-tooling or a re-tailoring of Quranic tradition in al-Khūlī’s method of tafsīr?