De-Orientalizing the Arab World: How Arab Science Fiction and NEOM Break the Binary Between East and West

Orientalism as a cultural ideology serves the neo-liberal foreign policy goals of the West and has defined pop cultural perceptions of the Arab world from the Western perspective for centuries. Arab science fiction, often drowned out by dominant Western pop cultural forces presents the Arab world from an Arab perspective, fighting the negative global perception of the Arab world that Orientalism has worked hard to carefully cultivate. Cities such as the futuristic city of NEOM in Saudi Arabia, further serve to destroy the orientalist views of Arab society through innovative urban planning and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In this thesis, I analyze the way Iraq+100 by Hassan Blassim and Linda Sansour’s Nation Estate push back against orientalist ideology in conjunction with Saudi Arabia’s urban and cultural revolution as the Arab nation builds the city of NEOM. Additionally, I will explore how Arab science fiction and dystopia reflect an optimistic future for the Arab world at large despite modern Western attempts to colonize the region.