Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Jennifer Heath -- From her royal body the robe was removed : the blessings of the veil and the trauma of forced unveilings in the Middle East / Mohja Kahf -- Shattered vessels that contain sparks of the divine : unveiling Hasidic women's dress code / Barbara Goldman Carrel -- Going the whole nine yards : vignettes of the veil in India / Roxanne Kamayani Gupta -- Out of the cloister : unveiling to better serve the Gospel / Laurene M. Lafontaine -- The Amish veil : symbol of separation and community / Jana M. Hawley -- "What is subordinated, dominates" : mourning, magic, masks, and male veiling / Jennifer Heath -- I just want to be me : issues in identity for one American Muslim woman / Pamela K. Taylor -- "She freed and floated on the air" : Salome and her dance of the seven veils / Shireen Malik -- "He hath couerd my soule inwarde and myn heed with a veyle" : veiling in medieval Europe and the early church / Désirée G. Koslin -- Nubo : the wedding veil / Sarah C. Bell -- After Eden : the veil as a conduit to the internal / Eve Grubin -- Virtue and sin : an Arab Christian woman's perspective / Rita Stephan -- Drawing the line at modesty : my place in the order of things / Michelle Auerbach -- On the road : travels with my hijab / Maliha Masood -- Purdah, patriarchy, and the tropical sun : womanhood in India / Jasbir Jain -- The veil : from Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi -- Concealing and revealing female hair : veiling dynamics in contemporary Iran / Ashraf Zahedi -- That (Afghan) girl! : ideology unveiled in National geographic / Dinah Zeiger -- Burqas and bikinis : Islamic dress in newspaper cartoons / Kecia Ali -- Dress codes and modes : how Islamic is the veil? / Aisha Lee Fox Shaheed -- From veil to veil : "what's in a woman's head is a lot more important than what's on it" / Sherifa Zuhur -- Epilogue.