George Mathew | University of Kerala (original) (raw)

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Papers by George Mathew

Orientalism is the term made famous by Edward Said and describes the processes and practices by w... more Orientalism is the term made famous by Edward Said and describes the processes and practices by which the West views, describes, creates knowledge about and reconstructs the Orient for Western consumption. The discourse of Orientalism, which is fashioned by what Said, following Gramsci, calls cultural hegemony, is responsible for the West representing the Orient in certain preconditioned, knowable ways. The Orient thus represented is not the real Orient but a way of describing this ‘Other’ as the alter-ego of the West based on what Said describes as the ontological and epistemological distinction between the Orient and the Occident. This paper argues that this representation of the East is still very much a prevalent trend in the West, especially in its media, and seeks to expose the play of Orientalism in three articles on the BBC News website, viz., “Malaysia minister attacks 'Obedient Wives Club'” by Jennifer Pak, “Sweating blood to make Helmand a garden of peace” by Caroline Wyatt, and “Condoms 'too big' for Indian men” by Damian Grammaticus.

Orientalism is the term made famous by Edward Said and describes the processes and practices by w... more Orientalism is the term made famous by Edward Said and describes the processes and practices by which the West views, describes, creates knowledge about and reconstructs the Orient for Western consumption. The discourse of Orientalism, which is fashioned by what Said, following Gramsci, calls cultural hegemony, is responsible for the West representing the Orient in certain preconditioned, knowable ways. The Orient thus represented is not the real Orient but a way of describing this ‘Other’ as the alter-ego of the West based on what Said describes as the ontological and epistemological distinction between the Orient and the Occident. This paper argues that this representation of the East is still very much a prevalent trend in the West, especially in its media, and seeks to expose the play of Orientalism in three articles on the BBC News website, viz., “Malaysia minister attacks 'Obedient Wives Club'” by Jennifer Pak, “Sweating blood to make Helmand a garden of peace” by Caroline Wyatt, and “Condoms 'too big' for Indian men” by Damian Grammaticus.

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