What is Orientalism? How does Edward Said define the concept? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is difficult to be precise about the answer to the question \u201cwhat is Orientalism?\u201d Edward Said uses the term in three interdependent senses: 1) Orientalism as a scholarly discipline, 2) Orientalism as a mode of thought based on the essential East-West divide, and 3) Orientalism as a political ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep reading for Edward Said’s answer to the question: what is Orientalism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The concept of Orientalism was coined by the late Edward Said, a Palestinian-American academic who founded the discipline of Postcolonial Studies. In its broadest sense, Orientalism is the framework through which Western writers, policymakers, and the general public have interpreted and defined \u201cthe Orient\u201d (the eastern part of Asia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Said, the key insight is that Orientalism does not <\/em>reflect objective truth. Instead, it is an invention of the Western mind. <\/strong>The central premise of Orientalism is that the Orient is a fundamentally different, exotic, dangerous, unchanging, and \u201cother\u201d place. <\/strong>This concept of a foreign and strange East forms a set of cultural, political, religious, and linguistic contrasts which, in turn, has enabled the \u201cWest\u201d to think of itself as a distinct\u2014and superior\u2014entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Said (1935-2003) had the intellectual framework of Orientalism impressed upon him from birth. As an Arab Palestinian educated in Palestine and Egypt (both of which were British colonies at the time), who then went on to an academic career in literature and postcolonial studies in the United States, Said always felt himself to be straddling the Eastern and Western parts of his identity. Despite his success, Said always had a keen awareness of his identity as an \u201cOriental.\u201d His book Orientalism <\/em>is his exploration of the origins, development, and implications of this manufactured \u201cotherness\u201d that he experienced so deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe West\u201d (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 identity was typically expressed as one of superiority and dominance over the Orient, which Western writers, travelers, and, later, imperialists reduced to a series of crude and reductive stereotypes and generalizations. The West was Christian where the Orient was Islamic; its people were Nordic where those of the Orient were Semitic; it was liberal, democratic, and rational where the Orient was backward, despotic, and emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even generalized terms like \u201cWest,\u201d \u201cEast,\u201d \u201cOrient,\u201d and \u201cOccident\u201d are products of Orientalism, artificially separating complex cultures into monolithic, separate, and opposed moral spheres. (\u201cOccident\u201d is the Latin-derived term for the Western world, the counterpart to the Eastern \u201cOrient.\u201d) These concepts reduce the complexity of diverse human societies, languages, cultures, and histories into near-meaningless generalities that ultimately serve to obscure the humanity of the people to whom they refer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Orientalism represents the interpretation and creation of the Orient\u2014by <\/em>Westerners, for <\/em>Westerners. The people of the Orient themselves have had little agency in the creation of Western narratives about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is Orientalism? How does Edward Said define the concept? It is difficult to be precise about the answer to the question \u201cwhat is Orientalism?\u201d Edward Said uses the term in three interdependent senses: 1) Orientalism as a scholarly discipline, 2) Orientalism as a mode of thought based on the essential East-West divide, and 3) Orientalism as a political ideology. Keep reading for Edward Said’s answer to the question: what is Orientalism?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,39,21],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-28079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-philosophy","tag-orientalism","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\n