Select annotated bibliography entry
Akbari, Suzanne. Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100–1450. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2009.
Explores representations of Muslims in the medieval Western imaginary between the beginning of the First Crusade and the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire’s capital. The book traces a prehistory to colonial and contemporary Orientalism by interrogating Western conceptualizations of climatic effects, bodily diversity, spiritual difference, and more. The scholarship is of interest to students of Orientalism, medieval studies, and embodiment.
