Sadik Rddad's New Book Rethinks Western Travel Writing on Morocco
Rabat – Sadik Rddad's latest book, Dis-orienting the Maghreb: Morocco in British and American Travel Writing , revisits Western narratives on Morocco with a fresh perspective.
Moving over the well-worn themes of Orientalist discourse, Rddad examines how British and American travel writers constructed Morocco's image in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The book challenges dominant academic trends that focus on time and continuity, instead focusing on geography and historical context.
Ali Behdad, a professor at UCLA, describes Rddad's work as a valuable addition to travel literature and postcolonial studies.
'His nuanced approach invites readers and scholars alike to reconsider the ways in which we engage with and interpret the rich tradition of travel writing,' Behdad notes.
Rddad identifies four key shifts in the way Western writers portrayed Morocco. In Our Mission to the Court of Marocco (1880), Philip Durham Trotter presents a British diplomatic mission through a lens of national pride which reinforces and further validates a belief in British superiority.
Frances Macnab's A Ride in Morocco (1902) moves away from religious and missionary perspectives, and instead promotes colonial secularism as the primary force of modernity. In Morocco the Piquant (1914), George Edmond Holt reflects broader cultural shifts in both Morocco and the US, placing the country within a growing transnational network.
Finally, Edith Wharton's In Morocco (1920) tells the tensions between American nationalism and French colonial ambitions, while offering a glimpse into imperialist thought contradictions and imbalanced dichotomies.
A professor of English and Cultural Studies at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez, Rddad has long engaged with questions of postcolonialism, Sufism, and cultural exchange.
With his newly released book, he encourages a deeper reflection on how Western writers shaped, and at times distorted, understandings of Morocco, bringing much-needed attention to narratives often overlooked in academic discourse and deemed secondary.
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