Veiled Constellations

The “Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics, and ContemporarySociety” conference took place at York University’s Keele Campusand at the University of Toronto on 3-5 June 2010. Sponsors included theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the TorontoInitiative for Iranian Studies, the Noor Cultural Centre, the Canadian Councilof Muslim Women, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations,and multiple departments and associations at both universities. The two graduate students who co-organized the conference, Melissa Finn and ArshavezMozafari, did an excellent job in choosing papers that highlighted the veil’smulti-faceted appearances both in contemporary society and academic discoursesas something that is under-theorized and overlooked at the same time.The event’s advertising and signage played with the tropes of overwrittenand overlooked, suggesting that veiled women can be both silenced andsubjected to “therapeutic, punitive attention” (Edward Said, Covering Islam,xxxv-vi). For example, www.veiledconstellations.com shows two facelesswomen veiled in black, a torrent of water flooding the scene and pouring overthem and through the ovals where their faces should be. This serves as a kindof natural disaster or Armageddon trope on the body of Muslim women. Aprominent poster pictured a profiled woman wearing hijab, her face overwrittenwith overlapping Arabic words, while alternating pink lines radiatefrom behind her face, as if it were giving off light. A third poster offers thecommon image of the exotic woman behind-the-veil, a partial photo of awoman wearing niqab, her perfectly arched eyebrows perhaps challengingthe viewer to respond with the intrigued gaze, the desire to unveil her. Whilethese posters meant to undo tired images of Muslim women, their ambiguousnature sometimes reinforced those very stereotypes ...