Deconstruyendo el vilipendio de las masculinidades musulmanas en los Estados Unidos

Marta Bosch Vilarrubias

doi:10.5565/rev/rubrica.150

Deconstructing the vilification of Muslim masculinities in the United States

Authors

Marta Bosch Vilarrubias Universitat de Barcelona https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6811-6697

PDF (ES)

Abstract

In order to understand the foreign policies of President Donald J. Trump, and in particular the Travel Ban that came into effect in June 2017, the present article deconstructs the discursive history of vilification of Arab masculinities in the United States. Starting with the first colonial encounters, as exposed by Edward W. Said in Orientalism, the article traces a historical journey from the eighteenth century until nowadays, focusing on the pathologization and ascription of abnormality to the Muslim male through his characterization as hypermasculine and emasculated. The article then delves into the consequences of 9/11, drawing on the concepts of abjection (Kristeva), biopolitics and governmentality (Foucault), and necropolitics (Mbembe). These concepts are used to explain how Muslim masculinities have been vilified by being conceived as queered and failed (Puar) in contrast to hegemonic Western masculinities, and as a way to see how Donald Trump has re-appropriated these discourses in an attempt to assert his own manhood.

Keywords

Muslim, Arab, United States, masculinities, vilification

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Author Biography

Marta Bosch Vilarrubias, Universitat de Barcelona

Marta Bosch is assistant lecturer in the literary section of the English Studies Department at the University of Barcelona. Her research has focused on the representation of masculinities in Arab-American literature written by female authors. Bosch has published books and articles on the work of writers such as Diana Abu-Jaber, Laila Halaby, Mohja Kahf, Alicia Erian, and Frances Kirallah-Noble and on contemporary representations of the male Arab in cinema and television.

Latest Publications:

Armengol, Josep M., Marta Bosch-Vilarrubias, Àngels Carabí, Teresa Requena (eds). Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New Directions (Routledge, 2017)

Post-9/11 Representations of Arab Men By Arab American Women Writers: Affirmation and Resistance (Peter Lang Publishing, 2016).

“Transitory Masculinities in Post-9/11 Arab American Literature Written by Women” (in Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

“Contemporary Terrorist Bodies: The (De-)Construction of Arab Masculinities in the United States” (in Embodying Masculinities Towards a History of the Male Body in U.S. Culture and Literature, Peter Lang Publishing, 2013).

“Post-9/11 Representations of Arab masculinities by Arab American Women Writers: Criticism or Praise?” (in Men in Color: Racialized Masculinities in U.S. Literature and Cinema, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).