Multiculturalism Or Islamophobia?

Zusatztext

This book is an attempt to analyze and evaluate John Updike's Terrorist which stands as one of the most radical, unexpected works in Updikes highly diverse catalog. Set in the America changed by 9/11, the narrative gestures observations and reflections on American multiculturalism, religious radicalism, stereotypes, and the role of religion in human life. Terrorist, which also pivots on the revived discourses about Samuel Huntingtons clash of civilizations arguments, also exploits the clichés propagated by Western media outlets. Despite Updikes gifted way with words, clichés and stereotypes at times stifle the novel which tries to advance the thesis that the post-Soviet foreign devil is Islam, a religion whose physical immediacy and challenge to the West seems, as the novel assumes, as diabolical and brutal now as it has never been before. Terrorist, thus, considers Islam as the instigator of terror and is regarded as a religion that is at war with life and civilization itself. Unfortunately, the novel conveys a rather pessimistic vision of multiculturalism in twenty-first century American society, yet it provides space for the exploration of conflicting values.

Autorenportrait

Farouq Rezq is the author of The Image of Islam and Arabs in Western Literatures (2011). He visited Germany and England as a representative of Al-Azhar University. He also spent two years as a Visiting Fellow at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, U.S. Rezq is currently a lecturer in English and American literature at Al-Azhar University.

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