ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to the reflection on the role that objects of knowledge, such as terrorism or the Middle East, play in the articulation of modern secular liberal subjectivity and on the potential of university education to address this relationship critically and move towards the horizon of social emancipation. Especially since 9/11, the association between terrorism and the Middle East has become particularly intense. The literatures on teaching the Middle East and teaching terrorism, respectively, have long reflected on the implications this has on learning processes and how to deal with it. Instructors agree on the importance of validating student subjectivity and of engaging in processes of constructive defamiliarisation with subjects like the Middle East and terrorism, as well as with the apparently natural connection between the two. Using auto-ethnography, the chapter presents how I cope with the challenge of softening the stubborn association between terrorism and the region.
