Specters of Islam

Abstract

In this paper, I trace historical developments in Islamist politics and mainstream feminism in relation to media representations of Muslim women. By examining articles in The New York Times (NYT) published between 1979 and 2011, I suggest that secular representations of Islam, both in the media and feminist discourse, propagate what I call ‘anti-Islamism.’ By constructing a periodization based on signature events within contemporary Islamist history (what I term an ‘Islamist periodization’), I identify tactical shifts within the larger, global strategy of anti-Islamism. As a conceptual frame, anti-Islamism moves beyond articulations that either conceptualize Islamophobia as a behavioral-psychological disposition created through misinformation, or as a structural form of racial bigotry. Instead, anti-Islamism describes a consistent effort to counter and negate Islam’s world-making aspirations. Ultimately, I deduce that feminism as a political and epistemic project (with three major exceptions) is necessarily incompatible with Islamic orthodoxy – an incompatibility reinforced by media representations.