Geopolitically Orient signifies the Middle East, Asia and the Far East, territories that were once a part of one or another European Empire. And this, Said stresses, is how Orientalism sustains its power: through repetition. Oriental landscape, literature, attitude, etc. His family was exiled from Mandate Palestine during the 1948 Nakba, and he went on to live in Lebanon, Egypt and the United States. He provided a clear example of this interaction by discussing Lord Balfours speech to the House of Commons in 1910. Said finds the following dogmas implicit in the works of Grunchbaun and other such Orientalists: Said labels the third category of contemporary Orientalist representations as Marely Islam. In this context, the Europeans define themselves looking at the mirror of the orient. Said maintained that it is the stereotypes and prejudices that determine the Western representation of the Orient. Comments on Orientalism 1 st paragraph In part II of the Introduction to Orientalism Said says that the Orient is not a fact of nature, but an idea. The West (by which we refer primarily to Europe and North America) in turn forged its historical identity against the foil of the East or Orient. This knowledge is a paraphrase of . Said used the word the other to describe the Western fascination towards the orient. Orientalism, while also extending its breadth to all that is not considered West (The Middle East, India, Russia, etc.). Said deplores that the modern Orient has fallen for the bait and is participating in its own Orientalizing. For example, the religion of Christ was Christianity, so they called Islam as Mohammadism. This is certainly true of Orientalism The basic assumption is that the Orientalist knows the Orient better than Orientals do themselves. According to this view, the Muslim mind is capable of only four out of eight human thought processes. In its broadest sense, Orientalism is the framework through which Western writers, policymakers, and the general public have interpreted and defined the Orient (the eastern part of Asia). Said asserts it is the academic studies that support these negative images. What is Orientalism? For instance, we can see them at work in the ways the United States and European Union have endowed themselves with the authority to impose what a 2022 UN report called suffocating economic sanctions against Syria. Said further described the process and ultimate goal of colonization: What the machine (the colonial power structure) branches feed into it in the Easthuman material, wealth, knowledge[]is processed by the machine and then converted into more power.. Edward Said's Definition Of Orientalism. In his book, Said observes a spate of harmful and sometimes contradictory stereotypes of so-called Oriental peoples, who are described as lazy, suspicious, gullible, mysterious or untruthful. Edward Said substantially invented both the term Orientalism and the field of postcolonial studies. Findings in academia inform foreign and domestic policies. After World War I, orientalism took a more liberal attitude barring the Islam. They used western terminology to define the orientals. The Whitewash is a scathing, hilarious satire of Asian misrepresentation in Hollywood. This, for me, is a curious construct and one which Said may well have adapted as necessary or as beneficial for his use while being aware that this contains a . Said shows how Orientalist writings and ideologies actively shape the world they describe, and how they perpetuate views of Middle Eastern people as inferior, subservient, and in need of saving. Said (1935-2003) had the intellectual framework of Orientalism impressed upon him from birth. While the Orientalist scholars were the seers, the observers, the students, and the subject. So, a discourse is the product of interaction between power and knowledge interconnected in a never-ending circle. He says that with the spread of colonization, Europeans came in contact with underdeveloped and undeveloped countries of the east. Edward Said was a great scholar and an important figure in Post-Colonial studies. This notion of knowledge as power and authority is present throughout Saids critique. As such, the idea of the Orient functions more as an abstract antithesis the West defines itself against than as an accurate descriptor of a region. Orientalism has been translated into 36 languages (as of 2003) and remains a classic available in most bookstores. To this he adds the presumption of the president of the Middle East Studies Association that since the Arab language is much given to rhetoric, the Arabs are consequently incapable of true thought.. The theme that Said spent the most time developing and producing examples in Orientalism was the idea that Orientalism was not the objective field of study it claimed to be. 4 Pages. Required fields are marked *. While media literacy about Orientalism is increasing, these tropes remain as relevant as ever in the Western popular imagination. Edward Said examines the role of these area specialists of the East. Here is a brief summary of all three chapters in Edward Saids, In this chapter, Said traces the development of modern Orientalism by presenting a broadly chronological description. Edward Said Orientalism Essay. They found their cultures exotic and full of queerness. Friday essay: how the West betrayed Syria. This was another example of knowledge as power. However, [humans] make their own history and every society is in a constant state of flux and development. The central premise of Orientalism is that the Orient is a fundamentally different, exotic, dangerous, unchanging, and other place. The video spoofs the yellow filter, a colour-grading style used when depicting places perceived as impoverished or rife with conflict. Said distinguishes between pure and political knowledge. What keeps Orientalism flourishing and relevant is its consistent and active traffic between a variety of fields. For Said, as it was for Foucault, knowledge is power. The Europeans generalized attributes of the oriental people and began to portray them through their scientific reports, media sources and literary works. Orientalism is 'a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient.' It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship. Said uses the word, to signify a system of representation framed by political forces that brought the, or the East into Western Empire, Western learning and Western consciousness. University of Sydney provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU. They also claimed that the orientals have not developed as a nation. Al-Azm was to make the same point only a few years later. The Orient consists of modern geographic territories known as the Middle East and Asia, commonly referred to as the Near East and Far East, respectively. Said noted that no one would dare form essential qualities of the Negro mind or the Jewish personality, however it was acceptable to form essential qualities of the Islamic mind, and the Arab characters. Such an essentialist view of the Orientals, of the Arabs, of the Semites, of Islam, therefore, is tantamount to racism. ' Orientalism' by Edward Said is a canonical text in which he challenges the concept of Orientalism and the difference between east and west. They divided the world into two parts with the concept of ours and theirs. But Orientalist perceptions didnt simply disappear after the colonial period. Edward Said agrees with Disraeli who said that East is something more than just an idea without corresponding reality. Orientalists often describe parts of Southwest Asia and North Africa with the intention of representing the entire Orient, and a wide range of moral attitudes, religions, languages, cultures and political structures are folded into one. Edward Said's most prominent work 'Orientalism (1978)' which set the foundation for post-colonial theory, focuses mainly on The Middle East and Arab nations. Said begins this chapter with a discussion of Orientalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Such is the meretricious message which, without much elaboration, and without any obvious mental effort, remains as potent with some audiences as it did 30 years ago. Europeans thought that they were biologically superior to orientals. But many more have read Edward Said's influential book Orientalism, published in 1978, which applied Foucault's ideas to the legacy of the great European empires. It has been influential in about half a dozen established disciplines, especially literary studies (English, comparative literature), history, anthropology, sociology, area studies (mainly Middle East studies) and comparative religion. Orientalism by Edward Said: In a Nutshell, A Brief Summary of Orientalism by Edward Said, Various Flaws and Weaknesses in Edward Saids Orientalism, Orientalism & Technology: A Primer on the Techno-Orientalism Debate, Foundational Essay: Saids Knowing the Oriental, Edward said: Biography, Orientalism Theory & Postcolonialism, A Brief Summary of Orientalism by Edward W. Said, Edward Saids Orientalism: Various Flaws and Weaknesses, Coleridges Treatment Of The Supernatural In His Major Poems, Coleridge as a Poet: Analysis of Main Features of his Poetry, Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Summary & Analysis, Significance of the Wedding-Guest in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Interesting Facts About Gothic Literature You Must Know, 20 Most Famous Classic Gothic Novels That Will Intrigue You With Their Horror Stories. The political powers picked up this thread and used it to justify their colonial expansion. This knowledge is a paraphrase of preconceived notions and ideas. Orientalism served as an ideological basis for French and British colonial rule. As an adjective the word qualifies anything belonging to the East e.g. Said pointed out The Persians by Aeschylus as an example of early attempts to create an Orient. Said presents a review of the French and English traditions of the study of Muslim Near East during the 19th century and further up to the world war I. Local interests are Orientalist special interests, the central authority is the greatest interest of the imperial society as a whole.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[468,60],'elifnotes_com-banner-1','ezslot_10',159,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-elifnotes_com-banner-1-0'); Through the enabling of the Orientalist, the colonial power was and is able to transform the subjugated people, the subalterns, into mere raw materials that the empire consumed. Local interests are Orientalist special interests, the central authority is the greatest interest of the imperial society as a whole.. As he puts it in the books rushed, last few pages: in conclusion, what of some alternative to Orientalism? They claimed that the aim of colonization was to civilize the uncivilized people of the East. In his 2003 preface, he wrote, much of the personal investment in this study derives from my awareness of being an Oriental as a child growing up in two British colonies. Their emphasis was no longer on the description of the exotic but rather on the comprehension of it. Therefore, through Orientalism, the West took it upon itself to represent the Orient and by doing so opened it to exploitation. He also attempts to show the extent to which these representations permeate the Western culture. Therefore, they had to be dealt with by maintaining the power of choice. This condition was timeless according to the Europeans.
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