Provocative, and thought-provoking.

Benjamen Walker’s Theory Of Everything: Modernity = Boobs

A major difference between the “Western” world dominated by Christians and those parts of the world which are “entering modernity” does have to do, in part, with attitudes toward exposed flesh.  To me, connections to Said’s Orientalism are rather obvious. (Although I’ve never read the book itself, I get the impression that it contains some insightful comments about the way Christian-Europeans constructed their own identity as “Occidentals” through an idea of “The Orient” as both exotic and sensual. Read during the Victorian era, Arabian Nights must have been quite interesting a read.)

Of course, ethnographers who know Southwest Asia have a lot to say about body politics. Yara?