Linda Steet’s research while affiliated with Philadelphia ZOO and other places

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Publications (3)


Veils And Daggers
  • Article

January 2000

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77 Reads

Linda Steet

The American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics’ Choice Award, 2001 "Veils and Daggers is one of those rare books that is important, well-written, and has a sense of humor.... This book demonstrates the importance of theoretical eclecticism, empirical richness, and the judicial use of illustrative photos. It's a great read!" —Sari Knopp Biklen, Laura and Douglas Meredith Professor, Chair, Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University National Geographic magazine is an American popular culture icon that, since its founding in 1888, has been on a nonstop tour classifying and cataloguing the peoples of the world. With more than ten million subscribers, National Geographic is the third largest magazine in America, following only TV Guide and Reader's Digest. National Geographic has long been a staple of school and public libraries across the country. In Veils and Daggers, Linda Steet provides a critically insightful and alternative interpretation of National Geographic. Through an analysis of the journal's discourses in Orientalism, patriarchy, and primitivism in the Arab world as well as textual and visual constructions of Arab men and women, Islam, and Arab culture, Veils and Daggers unpacks the ideological perspectives that have guided National Geographic throughout its history. Drawing on cultural, feminist, and postcolonial criticism, Steet generates alternative readings that challenge the magazine's claims to objectivity. In this fascinating journey, it becomes clear that neither text nor image in the magazine can be regarded as natural or self-evident and she artfully demonstrates that the act of representing others "inevitably involves some degree of violence, decontextualization, miniaturization, etc." The subject area known as Orientalism, she shows, is a man-made concept that as such must be studied as an integral component of the social, rather than the natural or divine world. Veils and Daggers repositions and redefines National Geographic as an educational journal. Steet's work is an important and groundbreaking contribution in the area of social construction of knowledge, social foundations of education, educational media, and social studies as well as racial identity, ethnicity, and gender. Once encountered, readers of National Geographic will never regard it in the same manner again. "Steet's in-depth analyses are incisive, provocative, and multilayered. Accessible and theoretically rich, Veils and Daggers is highly valuable for scholars and students of cultural studies, ethnic studies, women's studies, journalism, and education." —Leslie Rebecca Bloom, author of Under the Sign of Hope: Feminist Methodology and Narrative Interpretation


Veils and Daggers: A Century of National Geographic's Representation of the Arab World

January 2000

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280 Reads

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52 Citations

National Geographic magazine is an American popular culture icon that, since its founding in 1888, has been on a nonstop tour classifying and cataloguing the peoples of the world. With more than ten million subscribers, National Geographic is the third largest magazine in America, following only TV Guide and Reader's Digest. National Geographic has long been a staple of school and public libraries across the country. In Veils and Daggers, Linda Steet provides a critically insightful and alternative interpretation of National Geographic. Through an analysis of the journal's discourses in Orientalism, patriarchy, and primitivism in the Arab world as well as textual and visual constructions of Arab men and women, Islam, and Arab culture, Veils and Daggers unpacks the ideological perspectives that have guided National Geographic throughout its history. Drawing on cultural, feminist, and postcolonial criticism, Steet generates alternative readings that challenge the magazine's claims to objectivity. In this fascinating journey, it becomes clear that neither text nor image in the magazine can be regarded as natural or self-evident and she artfully demonstrates that the act of representing others "inevitably involves some degree of violence, decontextualization, miniaturization, etc." The subject area known as Orientalism, she shows, is a man-made concept that as such must be studied as an integral component of the social, rather than the natural or divine world. Veils and Daggers repositions and redefines National Geographic as an educational journal. Steet's work is an important and groundbreaking contribution in the area of social construction of knowledge, social foundations of education, educational media, and social studies as well as racial identity, ethnicity, and gender. Once encountered, readers of National Geographic will never regard it in the same manner again. Author note: Linda Steet is Assistant Professor of Social Foundation of Education and Co-Coordinator of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of Michigan, Flint.


Citations (1)


... In general, most orientalists embraced an essentialist, cultural explanation of the Orient that denigrates the vague region (including its dominant religion of Islam) and perpetuates a trope of Western superiority (Fernandez 2009). Within orientalism, there is a commonplace gendered discourse that frames Muslim women as the victims of Islam and of backward and violent Muslim men (Said 1997;Kahf 1999;cooke 2000;Steet 2000;Razack 2004;Shaheen 2008;Holt & Jawad 2013;Mohammad 2013;Szanto 2016;Khan & Aurangzeb 2018). While there are countless challenges and critiques to this homogenizing, biased, and partial framing, as I discuss in much of this paper, there remains a common perception in Western states that Islam is exceptionally oppressive towards women and, thus, that Muslim women are victims of their religion and Muslim men (Holt & Jawad 2013;Terman 2017). ...

Reference:

Gendered Orientalism and Syrian Women Refugees
Veils and Daggers: A Century of National Geographic's Representation of the Arab World
  • Citing Book
  • January 2000