ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the dominant ways in which Muslims and Islam are depicted and represented in a Western imaginary. It offers a literature review that situates the empirical chapters and explains the way in which they try to make a fresh contribution to the study of Islam in Europe. To explore these issues of hypervisibility, the chapter employs Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of chronotope, time-space, in a critical review of literature on Muslims and Islam in Europe. The chapter introduces an emerging body of literature which moves beyond the dominant gaze, and starts to present a more rounded picture of Islam and Muslims in Europe. It argues that dominant representations of Muslims and Islam in both public and academic discourse take as their primary model certain highly selective forms and shapes of Islam and Muslim lifesuch as public religious practices, Islamic political activism.
