Constructing The Terrorist Threat: Islamophobia, the Media, & the War on Terror
New MEF Film Available Now
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Deepa Kumar, one of the nation’s foremost scholars on Islamophobia, looks at how Muslims have become the predominant face of terror in U.S. news and entertainment media — even though terror attacks by white extremists have far outnumbered attacks by Muslim Americans since 9/11.
Arguing that racialized threats have long been used to induce moral panics and advance anti-democratic policies, Kumar explores how ruling elites have been raising the specter of Arab and Islamic terror since the 1970s to justify militarism, war, and curbs on civil liberties. From the Iran-Hostage Crisis in 1979 to the “war on terror” after 9/11 to the rise of ISIS today, she argues that Americans have been taught to fear Muslims out of all proportion to reality, presenting a wealth of eye-opening data about the actual threat level posed by Muslim terrorists in the United States.
Constructing the Terrorist Threat offers a clear-headed assessment of terrorism that couldn’t be more timely and urgent given the politics of fear that now dominate our political landscape.
Dr. Deepa Kumar, an award-winning scholar and activist, is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Rutgers University. Dr. Kumar is the author of two books, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike and Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. She is currently working on a third book on the cultural politics of the US national security state from the Cold War to the War on Terror. For more, visit deepakumar.net.
PRAISE FOR THE FILM
The definitive educational guide to the cultural imagination of the War on Terror.
— ARUN KUNDNANI, VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT NEW YORK UNIVERISITY
You won’t find a more lucid, convincing, and well-documented analysis of the historical roots and current geopolitical interests driving the American and European ‘moral panic’ about ‘terrorism’ than Deepa Kumar’s amazing illustrated lecture.
— LILA ABU-LUGHOD, JOSEPH L. BUTTENWIESER PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The perfect classroom tool for cutting through the wild speculation, baseless accusation, and unhinged fear of Islam that now rules so much of our political culture.
— ROBERT MCCHESNEY, PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION AT UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
An antidote at a time when anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes and behavior have become normalized, threatening Muslim civil liberties and informing foreign policy.
— JOHN L. ESPOSITO, PROFESSOR OF RELIGION & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND OF ISLAMIC STUDIES AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
An important and timely analysis of how the racialized terrorist threat has been produced and mobilized in the 21st century.
— BILL MULLEN, PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN STUDIES AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Unpacks all the complexities that lie within the loaded concept of ‘terrorism’.
— ERIK LOVE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT DICKINSON COLLEGE
Offers a wide-ranging exploration regarding the intersection of racism, Islamophobia, and policy.
— PETER GOTTSCHALK, PROFESSOR OF RELIGION AT WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
