" Celebrating " Orientalism (original) (raw)

Orientalism: Edward Said’s vision of the clash of cultures

(Chapter of the book RELIGION, CULTURE AND SENSE OE BELONGING)

The Orientalism is probably more than an intellectual overhaul to the legacy of the European colonialism in the Middle East. It is according to one of its most ferocious opponents (the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said), „a way of coming to terms with the Orient” that is based on the Orient‟s special place in European experience, the place of Europe‟s greatest and richest colonies. A site that helped to define Europe (or the West) as the East contrasting image, idea, personality and experience‟ [Said 1978:1-2]. My commentary aims to look inside Edward Said‟s theory and see how it passed the test of time and the consolidation of American hegemonism and Islamic political radicalism.

Edward Said On Orientalism

Edward Said: On 'Orientalism', 2011

Featuring & Interview with Edward Said Professor, Columbia University & author of Orientalism Introduced by Sut Jhally University of Massachusets - Amherst Media Education Foundation www.mediaed.org The central argument of Orientalism is that the way that we acquire this knowledge is not innocent or objective but the end result of a process that reflects certain interests. That is, it is highly motivated. Specifically Said argues that the way the West, Europe and the U.S. looks at the countries and peoples of the Middle East is through a lens that distorts the actual reality of those places and those people. He calls this lens through which we view that part of the world Orientalism, a framework that we use to understand the unfamiliar and the strange; to make the peoples of the Middle East appear different and threatening. Professor Said's contribution to how we understand this general process of what we could call stereotyping has been immense. The aim of this program is to explore these issues through an interview with him. He starts by discussing the context within which he conceived Orientalism.

Edward Said and Recent Orientalist Critiques

Arab Studies Quarterly

Abstract: There have been many attempts in recent years to discredit Edward Said's tbesis of tbe "affiliation of knov>/ledge with power" (1997: xlix) by those who argue that Orientalist scholarship represents genuine and accurate knowledge of the Arab/Islamic world. Said's detractors claim that much of Orientalist scholarship has been "sympathetic" to the Orient and is free from any power motive. However, this article will attempt to show how all of these arguments fall apart when put to the test of reality, past and present, in literature. Orientalist scholarship and politics. After all the arguments of Bernard Lewis, Ibn Warraq and think tank and area experts, it is Said's voice of humanism that drowns out all of his dissenters' voices in this Orientalist war of words, which as Said believed, is "richly symptomatic of precisely what is denied" (1985: 91).

Edward Said ' s Controversial Work ORIENTALISM and the American Orientalism

2018

The first figure that pops up in my mind whenever I think about Orientalism is Pr. Edward Said and his ground-breaking book “Orientalism”, which was published in 1978. The point I want to make here by focusing on Said’s work is that one can read hundred of books; but if he did not select the right books to read, he won’t learn that much. “Orientalism” is hence the kind of books one cannot do without, along the process and the shaping of his intellectuality. To trace back Orientalism in history is a kind of tough task that this encompassing concept did exist practically in the other nations’ writings apart from UK and France. The purpose of this essay though is not to repeat what Said stipulated in his encircling intellectual and literary corpus. It intends rather, to point out a variety of ways in which Orientalism can be of great help to the study of historical, political and cultural concerns. Orientalism, so to speak, is a rich source, which can satisfy the scholars’ large array ...

Orientalism Before and After Edward Said

Edward Said’s historically influential work entitled Orientalism delivers a new and profound way of understanding culture and society through the historical context from which those views originate.