The Beauty of the Houri

The fascination with the houri, the pure female of Islamic paradise, began long before September 11, 2001. The Beauty of the Houri demonstrates how the ambiguous reward of the houri, mentioned in the Qurʾan and developed in Islamic theological writings, has gained a distinctive place in English and French literature from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century and in digital material in the twenty-first century. The houri had multiple functions in Islamic texts that ranged from caretaker to pure companion to entertainment. French, English, and American writers used the houri to critique Islam and Muslim societies while also adopting the houri as a model of feminine beauty. Unlike earlier texts that presented different forms of the houri or universalized the houri for all women, writings about the houri after September 11th offer contradictory messages about Islam. In the twenty-first century, the image of the houri symbolizes a reward for violence and the possibility of gender parity. As a cosmic figure that inspires enduring questions about the promise of paradise and the idealized feminine form, the houri has a singular past and potential for future interpretation.

The Word

This chapter traces the French and English relationship with the Ottoman Empire and accounts for the introduction of the term “houri” in French in the seventeenth century and English in the eighteenth century. Through surveying sixteenth-century polemics about Islam, seventeenth-century travel writings, and eighteenth-century literature, the chapter argues that French and English writers used the idea of the houri as a source of critique in anti-Islamic polemics and travel writing even while their views of Islam and Islamic empires could be ambivalent. By the eighteenth century, writers also began to employ the term “houri” as a way to describe a model of feminine beauty.

The Language of Feminine Beauty in Russian and Japanese Societies Natalia Konstantinovskaia (2020)

The Language of Feminine Beauty in Russian and Japanese Societies Natalia Konstantinovskaia (2020) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 219 pp.

Organic entities, costume, human body and neo-liberalism

This visual essay presents four of the author’s artistic projects, which respond to prevailing eastern European neo-liberal conceptions of the human body and the subjects it produces. The first project is concerned with the use of human skin as an organic material donated by its ‘owner’ for the manufacture of a corset and belt, which become parts of a new costume. The second project explores the characteristic of the ‘ideal’ neo-liberal human subject by means of the costume produced by manipulating the author’s own blood. The third project highlights the cultural norm according to which one is expected to present oneself to the known and especially unknown others in line with the dominant standards of feminine beauty – erotically attractive, healthy, youthful and slim. The fourth project focuses on the almost obsessive endeavour to preserve or rather achieve ‘the perfect skin’, as evident in countless beauty advertisements and artificially ‘optimized’ selfies.

The Sexual Politics of Beauty: Reflections on Contemporary Argentine Cinema

A sketch of the imagery of feminine beauty in contemporary Argentine cinema focusing on the history of regional beauty pageants, the way bodies are displayed, and the critique of conventional aesthetic parameters contributes to a comparative analysis of the documentaries La reina (2013), by Manuel Abramovich, and La más bella niña (2004), by Mariano Llinás, which demonstrate new approaches to old questions about the sexual politics of beauty. Un esbozo de la historia de los certámenes regionales, las condiciones de visibilidad de los cuerpos y la crítica de los parámetros estéticos convencionales contribuye a un análisis comparativo de los documentales La Reina (2013), de Manuel Abramovich, y La más bella niña (2004), de Mariano Llinás, que demuestran nuevas derivas para enfocar viejas preguntas alrededor de la política sexual de la belleza.

“Miss Romania” in the USA (1929): The Interplay between Beauty and Politics

This article focuses on the links between political discourse and feminine beauty in one of Romania’s first national beauty pageants. By selecting its “Miss Romania” in March 1929 and sending her to compete in the international “Miss Universe” pageant in Galveston, Texas, the popular magazine Realitatea Ilustrată sought to affirm its role in creating a visible symbol of the Romanian nation. “Miss Romania” was promoted and legitimized as an incarnation of national unity capable of assuring internal cohesion and external renown. In this way, the idealization of the national beauty winner and her transformation into a symbol of collective virtue translated political and propagandistic ambitions in terms of feminine identity.