WELCOME Edward Said Orientalism EDWARD SAID 19352003 Born

WELCOME

Edward Said & Orientalism

EDWARD SAID (19352003) ØBorn – 1 November 1935 ØPalestinian professor of literature at Columbia University ØFounder of the post colonial studies ØPresident of the Modern Language Association ØInfluences Antonio Gramsci Michel Foucault Vico ØDied - 25 September 2003

AWARDS Ø Bowdoin prize by Harvard university Ø Lionel Trilling Book Award Ø Wellek Prize Ø Sultan Owais prize BOOKS Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Auto biography Beginnings : Intention and Method The Question of Palestine Literature and Society The World, the Text and the Critic Covering Islam

ORIENTALISM Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West. The word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. v Orientalism is an academic term, used in art, history, literary studies, geography, and cultural studies, which is and describes a critical approach to representations of the Orient; of the Eastern cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, South West Asia, and South East Asia, represented as “European knowledge of the Orient” created by artists and

Eastern countries

Since the publication of Orientalism (1978), by Edward Said, the academic discourse of critical theorists featured the term Orientalism in applications particular to the variety of cultural imperialism imposed upon the societies of the Near East, which is the cultural hegemony that politically justifies

ØThe book Orientalism (1978) a critique (description and analyses) of Orientalism as the source of the false cultural representations with which the Western world Øperceives The thesis of Orientalism proposes the existence the Middle East—the narratives of how The West of a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric sees prejudice against peoples and their The East. Arabo–Islamic. culture”.

Three definitions of ORIENTALISM by Edward said 1. Any one who teaches, writes about, or researches the orientand this applies weather the person is an athropogogist, sociologist, historian or philolagist- either in its specific or its general aspects is an orientalist and what he or she does is orientalism 2. Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the orient” and “the occident”. 3. Orientalism as a western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the orient

Ø Cultural representation have served and continue to serve, has implicit justification for the colonial and imperial ambition of the European power and of the U S. ØOrientalism proposed that much western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism, meant for the self affirmation of European identity, rather than objectic academic study Ø Academic field of oriental studies functioned as a

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR Ø The oriental is irrational , depraved (fallen ) child like, “different”: thus the European is rational, virtuous, mature , “normal”. Ø The orient was viewed as if framed by the class room, the criminal court, the illustrated manual. orientalism, then, is knowledge of the orient that places things oriental in class, court, prison or manual for scrutiny, study, judgement, discipline or governing

ØBENJAMIN DISRAELY He was a British politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Book – Tancred “The east is a career” ØKARL MARX The 18 th Brumaire of Louis Bonatarte “They cannot represent themselves ; they must be represented” ØThe relation ship between occident and orient is a relationship of power, of domination , of varying degrees of a complex hegemony, and is quite accurately indicated in the title of K M Panikkar’s classic Asia and Western Dominant

AESCHYLUS The Persians “Now all Asia 'land Moans in emptiness Xerxes led forth, oh oh Xerxes destroyed woe, woe Xerxes’plans have all miscarried In ships of the sea. ” What matter here is that Asia speaks through and by virtue of European imagination. To Asia are given the

INSTITUTINONS ØSociete Asiatique ØThe Royal Asiatic Society ØThe Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft ØThe American Oriental Society

THANKS