Orientalism in American Cinema: Providing an Historical and Geographical Context for Post-Colonial Theory

Of the many criticisms leveled at Edward Said\u27s seminal work, Orientalism (1978), and those of post-colonial theorists following in his wake, from an historian\u27s perspective the most significant is that his argument is utterly lacking in historical context. In fact, post-colonial theorists do tend to mistrust the validity of history and often are suspicious of its complicity in the enterprise of western empires. Despite Said\u27s undeniable ahistoricism, however, most historians agree that the basic tenants of his argument have merit. What is lacking, then, is an examination of orientalism not as an indictment, with all manner of evidence pulled seemingly at random from a jumble of historic periods and geographic locations, but as an historical trend, a bi-product - and often abettor - of empire-building, artistic [mis]representation and othering of the unknown, which manifests itself in a variety of ways in different periods and settings. Analyzing the nature of orientalism in a specific western form of representation set against the historical context with regard to a certain geographic location, and how it evolves in form as the historical/political backdrop advances, will ground the endeavor of post-colonial theory firmly within the framework of historical inquiry. This will test the validity of Said\u27s thesis when the issues of his historicism and his references to portrayals of various and incongruous locales are corrected. I attempt to do this here by examining orientalism in American films set in Iraq, Egypt and Jerusalem, from the silent era to the present day, and tracing the unique form it takes and the evolution it undergoes as a result of American political/military interaction with and cultural awareness of each of these locations, respectively

Salafi Reformist Fatwas and the Challenge to Traditionalism in Egypt and Arabia, 1895 – 1930

Studies of the Islamic intellectual movement commonly known as Salafism have long focused either on the modernist reformers in Egypt and Syria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or on the far more austere and sometimes militant iterations of Salafism from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, often associated with Wahhabism. A handful of scholars have examined the links between the two and the transition from the earlier to the later Salafis, however many works which impacted the evolution of Salafism at the dawn of the twentieth century have been neglected, especially those which do not align with the dominant historiographical narratives. This work brings to light the works of key traditionalists in Egypt contesting the reformers there, and those of moderates in Arabia denouncing the more extreme voices in their own context. The writings of traditionalist scholars disparaging the reformism of modernist Salafis in Egypt reveal the pragmatic nature of the latter’s efforts to address the needs of a changing society, and provide new insights into their ultimate success. Similarly, the fatwas (Islamic legal opinions), treatises, and collections of poetry of a handful of elite Muslim scholars who played a key role in the expansion of the Saudi state in the 1910s and 1920s, uncover the similarly pragmatic and open-minded nature of these early Saudi Salafis, whose immense impact on the nature of the modern Saudi state has endured. The fatwas of the Egyptian reformers and those of the moderate pragmatists in Arabia, when juxtaposed with the traditionalists and the more severe religio-legal interpretations they opposed, provide unique insights into the questions their broader populations posed to them, as well as the nature of their relationships with political leaders. These scholars adopted strikingly similar Salafi methodologies in order to produce fatwas that both accommodated their temporal rulers and advanced their agendas to adapt Islamic legal pronouncements to the needs of a modern society. In fact, reform-minded scholars in the emergent Wahhabi-Saudi state invoked not only the same legal principles, but also the same scholarly writings in furtherance of a rationalist religio-legal approach to adapting to the conditions of a modern state and society as did their counterparts in Egypt. Indeed, while Western scholars have tended to portray the Egyptian modernists and the Wahhabis as representing starkly different approaches to Islamic legal thought, reformers in both groups during the first decades of the 20th century averred over-reliance on traditional views within the Islamic legal corpus and favored the Salafi approach of independently interpreting passages from the Qurʾan and Sunna to form legal opinions relevant to their particular circumstances. In both instances, as the practice of producing fatwas became institutionalized, first in Egypt and then in the emerging Wahhabi-Saudi state, the methodological approach of these Salafi reformers became predominant, not least because it aligned with state interests

Looking beyond human papillomavirus (HPV) genotype 16 and 18 : defining HPV genotype distribution in cervical cancers in Australia prior to vaccination

Australia has implemented a high-coverage HPV vaccination program but has not, to date, established the distribution of HPV types that occur in cervical cancers in Australia. This information is important for determining the potential for cervical cancer prevention with both current and broader spectrum HPV vaccines. We analysed 847 cervical cancers diagnosed 2005 to 2015 in tertiary centres in the three most populous Australian states with resolution of specimens containing multiple HPV types using laser-capture microdissection. Archived FFPE tissue was reviewed by specialist pathologists, sandwich sectioned, and initially whole-tissue sections genotyped for HPV. Samples were first genotyped using SPF10-LiPA25 (version 1). Negative samples were screened with DNA ELISA kit HPV SPF10, followed by genotyping with SPF1 LiPA if ELISA positive. If still negative, samples were tested on a qPCR assay targeting the E6 region of HPV16, 18, 45 and 33. Of the 847 cancers (65.1% squamous, 28.7% adenocarcinoma, 4.3% adenosquamous, 2.0% other), 92.9% had HPV detected. Of the HPV-positive cancers, 607 of 787 (77.1%) contained HPV16 or 18, 125 of 787 (15.9%) contained HPV31/33/45/52 or 58, and 55 (7.0%) another HPV type. There was a strong correlation between HPV type and age, with younger women most likely to have HPV16/18 detected and least likely HPV negative. Our findings indicate that cervical cancers diagnosed in Australia more frequently contain HPV16/18 than in international series. This could be due to cervical screening in Australia increasing the proportion of adenocarcinomas, in which types 18 and 16 more strongly predominate, due to prevention of squamous cancers. What’s new? Although Australia was the first country to implement a fully government-funded vaccination program against human papilloma virus (HPV), it remains unclear what carcinogenic HPV types are most frequent. Here the authors performed a country wide analysis of HPV genotypes in 847 cervical cancers using laser-capture microdissection. Compared to international studies, HPV16/18 was more (71.8%) and HPV31/33/45/52/58 less frequent (14.8%) with specifically less HPV58 detected, providing important information for the use of current or broader spectrum vaccine types