Edward Said On Orientalism (original) (raw)
2011, Edward Said: On 'Orientalism'
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.
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