^aThe Austen Riggs Center

Correspondence: Dr Marilyn Charles, 25 Main Street, PO Box 962, Stockbridge, MA 01262-0962, USA. E-mail: mcharles@msu.edu

Abstract

The Veil is considered as a symbol designating otherness and inaccessibility that becomes further problematized when viewed from outside the culture in which it is signified. Considering the Veil from a Western eye makes more visible ways in which "the Veil" is nested in but also lies outside of cultural meanings, in this way highlighting universal aspects and cultural collisions. From this vantage point we can better discern culture as a variable rather than a fact, thereby affording greater transparency through which to inform our understanding of the work of culture.