November Update

I am powering through Veils and Daggers with great enthusiasm, a task I can complete while breastfeeding my five-month-old throughout the day.

A few relevant notes:

  • p2 Grosvenor quote, measuring cultural impact of NatGeo “masquerade as common sense or objective knowledge.”

  • p8 “imaginative geography”

  • NatGeo re: Orientalist discourse

    • “a racist statement is not balanced by a non-racist statement”

  • p14 “did NatGeo represent Arabs as we represent ourselves?”

  • p17 NatGeo “Guiding Principles” (!!!)

  • p18 contradicting brand — one person deciding what is objective fact, not peer-reviewed

  • p23 Steet “uncovering popular Orientalism”

and most notably, Steet writing “this is not an Arab” in relation to select photographs National Geographic published of Arabs.

Meanwhile, I am combing through the digital archive to note every issue referencing MENA/SWANA countries, and have selected twelve issues for the first iteration of the project:

September 2010
October 2003
December 1991
September 1980
April 1976
December 1967
December 1964
July 1956
April 1948
January 1937
October 1922, and
January 1914 (!)

Pictured at left.