The Colonial Harem (Theory and History of Literature, Vol 21)

Rating:
Summary: The worst piece of pseudo-sholarship I've ever seen!
Review: From start to finish a diatribe against the evil French who pandered photographs proporting to be of Algerian women to the decadent west in an unsuccessful attempt to subjugate the Algerian people by doing so.

The author was equally distainfull of what he aparently considered the non-human things pretending to be Algerian women who appeared in these old photographs.

He used a few of the worst quality of these postcards to prove his points, which were driven home with questionable references to psychology.

Of course these photographs were the pornography of the day but they can often be beautiful works of art in their own right.

What the author does not anywhere mention in this venemous discourse is who the models actually were, if not Algerian women. In fact, that is exactly what they were, no matter how they dressed.

The earlier ones were often of slaves. Most of the others were of young girls without the protection of family driven into prostitution. It is not the French who were responcible for this. It was the Algerians themselves. Though the author does not show it, there were often series of photographs taken of the same girls. It is obvious when viewing these series that many of these girls were having the times of their often short, tragic lives being photographed. Others show the dispair of social evil.

The author shows none of this.

This book isn't worth the paper its written on. Don't waste your money.

Rating:
Summary: observer observed
Review: I strongly recommend "the colonial harem" for everyone interested in Orientalism, colonial and postcolonial literature, and the subaltern studies. In "the colonial harem," Malek Alloula reverses the camera and literally enables the readers to observe the observer and his "colonial gaze." As a final note, Barbara Harlow's introduction itself is worth reading alone for a better grasp of the complex issues that underlie the representation of the other. - Definitely worth buying!

Rating:
Summary: excellent for postcolonial classes
Review: This is an excellent book. i use it in my postcolonial classes in college as a way of introducing colonialist discourse and the way women are used in colonialist representations. if you want to understand why the East is suspicious of the West, especially when it comes to women and gender as a whole, this book is a good starting point.