Review of Kemper & Kalinovsky (eds) Reassessing Orientalism (Comparativ – Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte 3:2016).pdf (original) (raw)
En English: Through a number of cases forgotten by postcolonial critique, this book explores the notion of “ margins ”, geographical as well as epistemological, in the context of Said’s orientalism. Bringing together the Anglo-Indian case, often considered as a classical form of orientalism, and the Russo-Soviet case, both an object of Western orientalism and itself a producer of orientalist discourses, the study invites a shift in perspective from imperial Franco-British spaces towards less traditional comparisons. Going beyond a binary model, which opposes “ colonizers ” and “ colonized ”, the approach analyzes the mechanisms of knowledge production (arts, languages, literatures, religions etc.) and their transfers in colonial settings, as well as local appropriations and (re)inventions of hybrid traditions. Crossing perspectives in such a way helps to analyze the ambiguity of situations that unfolded during and after periods of imperial domination in the triangle of India, Russia and Europe. En français: A travers divers exemples oubliés de la critique postcoloniale, cet ouvrage explore la notion des marges, aussi bien géographiques qu’épistémologiques, dans le contexte de l’orientalisme dénoncé par Edward Saïd. Mettant en parallèle le cas angloindien, souvent présenté comme un « orientalisme classique », et le cas russo-soviétique, à la fois objet de l’orientalisme occidental et producteur d’un discours « orientaliste », il s’agit de décentrer le regard des espaces impériaux franco-britanniques vers des comparaisons moins traditionnelles. Dépassant le modèle binaire « colonisateur – colonisé », cette approche analyse le mécanisme de la constitution des savoirs (arts, langues, littératures, religions, etc.) et leurs transferts en situation coloniale, ainsi que les appropriations locales et les (ré)inventions de traditions hybrides. Le jeu des regards croisés permet de traduire toute l’ambiguïté des situations qui se sont succédé pendant et après les périodes de domination impériale dans le triangle constitué par l’Inde, la Russie et l’Europe. Compte rendus: Marlène Laruelle, in Russian Review, 2016, vol. 75, n° 2, p. 320-321 ; Michel Boivin, in BCAI : Bulletin Critique des Annales Islamologiques, n° 30, 2017, p. 116-117
2020
This thesis analyses the way Soviet orientalists wrote the history of Central Asia, and in particular of the Tajik SSR, one of the region’s constituent Republics. Focusing on the post-war period, it supports the argument that Soviet orientalists reimagined the Central Asian past as part of a wider, global history. Highlighting continuities with the pre-Revolutionary tradition of academic Orientology, it discloses how the orientalist approach of history centred on a vision of human development that contradicted historical materialism in essential ways. While Stalinism imagined history as driven by socio-economic laws of development, Soviet orientalists granted culture a relatively autonomous and progressive force in history too. Illuminating a distinct “Asian” voice in the heritage of Soviet Oriental studies, this thesis foregrounds the intellectual biography of Central Asian Bobodzhan Gafurovich Gafurov, director of the academic Institute for Oriental studies in Moscow from 1956 unt...