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"ON THE GAZE is an exploration of cosmopolitanism and its 21st-century manifestation in Dubai. "What do I see? Neon contours of a building at night. A near-empty walkway with a flashing monitor that reads: "Dubai Digital Park"; in the morning I see a concrete expanse of flat apartment rooftops amidst a humid, sand-infused horizon, the steaming heat of the desert temperature in August. Plasma screens along a walkway show various scenes of people eating, exercising, shopping, the only people I see. I am inan area called Silicon Oasis. Dubai, a city where 70% of the world is within an 8-hour plane flight from its airport, was built to represent the geographical factuality of its being a crossroads between East and West. A contemporary city of spectacle andthe spectacular, it caters to all manner of the gaze"--
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What does it mean to be cosmopolitan? To be a crossroads, a gathering place, a center for world commerce? Explore the meaning of Dubai as a nation-state at the crossroads of the world, gathering people together from around the world. Much like Syros in ancient Greece was once at the center of world commerce, Dubai has evolved into a twenty-first-century nexus for new cosmopolitanisms. Both as a port and desert city, Adrianne Kalfopoulou imagines how Dubai has projected itself onto these screens as an idea for the future — and the present. By exploring the development of Dubai both through the lens of philosophers like Baudrillard and his "hyperreal" as well as by digging into the city's history, from its disastrous collapse as a pearl-diving mecca through its complex evolution into a member of the United Arab Emirates. On The Gaze: Dubai and it's new Cosmopolitanisms fleshes out the story of Dubai, revealing it through multiple gazes. Kalfopoulou's fantastic writing and inward searching brings readers along as she examines what Dubai means to her, to the Arab world, and to the world as a whole. "We follow Kalfopoulou's multiple gazes—temporal, abstract, theoretical, and personal—and journey with her from Dubai's humble beginnings as a port village to its evolution as a global city of the digital age. The book abounds in honest and vivid portraits of people and places written in beautifully crafted prose. A very welcome addition to the growing body of anglophone literature on the Arabian Gulf." —Yahya Haidar, editor and translator, Al-Din, A Prolegomenon to the Study of the History of Religions.
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