3.19 - Global Gothic 1: Islamic Gothic

Summary

In the twenty-first century, Gothic pervades national literatures and cinemas even in some possibly unexpected parts of the world, such as the Islamic Middle East. Gothic texts and films from the region mainly aim to disentangle the genre from Western influence by including motifs from Islamic folklore and demonology such as the supernatural creatures known as ‘djinns’. While many Gothic texts from Islamic countries, such as Iran, are celebrated by Western audiences today for being politically progressive in outlook, a large number of Gothic texts and films from Turkey often tend to cultivate far more conservative values in correlation with governing political and religious orthodoxies. This chapter investigates the cultural origins of what might be called ‘Islamic Gothic’, highlighting its most common conventions concerning the representation of women haunted by malevolent djinns of Islamic cultures. Following a historical survey that sheds light on the development and popularity of Gothic in the Islamic Middle East, particularly in Egypt, Iran and Turkey, the chapter explores the role of the djinn, the mainstream monster of Islamic Gothic in Turkish literature and film, in establishing an ideological position that correlates with the rising popularity of conservative politics in the post millennium.