Professor Deepa Kumar
Rutgers University

The image of the Muslim "other" is both ubiquitous and naturalized in 21st century culture in the United States. Yet, 9/11 does not mark the beginning of these Orientalist images; rather it follows from a longer history of East-West relations. In this lecture, Professor Deepa Kumar will discuss the images of Muslims in the “West” over the course of 14 centuries and unpack its continuities and contradictions. She will argue that these images can only be fully grasped by using a dialectical method that situates them within a social totality.

Monday, October 31, 3:00-4:15 p.m., CMA 5.160 (LBJ Room)
public welcome

Professor Kumar’s work has previously focused on media framing
of social movements, particularly the labor movement. More
recently, she has been investigating the rhetorical dimensions of
popular representations of Islam in US media. She is the author of
Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike
(University of Illinois Press, 2007) and numerous articles
including “Framing Islam: The Resurgence of Orientalism during
the Bush II Era, ” Journal of Communication Inquiry, No. 34, vol.
3, 2010 and “Heroes, Victims, and Veils: Women’s Liberation and
the Rhetoric of Empire Post 9/11,” Forum on Public Policy in
2008. She is also a public critic and activist for social justice.

Presented by the Department of Communication Studies and the College of Communication