On the Gaze

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 corssroads 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 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, theore