Abstract

In this essay, I start by addressing the question of “has Islamophobia reached a tipping point in the United States”? Then I apply Lacanian social theory, drawing on Slavoj Žižek’s analysis of anti-Semitism through the seven veils of fantasy, to Islamophobia in an effort to conceptualize the complex psychosocial phenomenon as a fundamental fantasy, which ideologically sustains the ‘war on terror’ discourse. Finally, I end with a brief remark on the possibility of Islamophobia as a counter-discourse.