Suggestions for Further Reading

Bailey, David A., and Gilane Tawadros. Veil: veiling, representation and contemporary art.  Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; London, 2003. Batur, Ayşe Lucie. “The Mythology of the Veil in Europe: A Brief History of a Debate”. Comparative Studies Of South Asia,...

The Veil and Essaydi’s Work

Western audiences viewing Essaydi’s photographs of (sometimes) veiled Muslim women will likely bring with them preconceived notions of the veil and what it means to their interpretation of the works.  Essaydi, educated in both France and the United States, is no doubt...

The Veil in Contemporary Art

The veil in art is often still situated within Western discourse.  Contemporary artists using the veil within their work often challenge colonial images of veil, and engage in Western debates about veil; less so do they engage in dialogue solely about the Islamic use...

Meanings of the Veil Within Islam

While the West may view the veil as oppressive, it also has a history within Islamic countries as a symbol of revolution and a rejection of Western values like consumerism that were themselves deemed to be negative.  For example, during the French colonization of...

Orientalism and the Western Gaze

During the Colonial Period, when western nations were controlling or attempting to control Arab and Islamic countries (among others), the veil came to be used as a symbol of women’s oppression and Islamic “backwardness” that Western Colonial powers used as...