Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)

Edward Said 1935-2003

Born in Jerusalem on 1 November 1935. Palestinian Christian father and Lebanese mother. Edward with his younger sister in Cairo

Edward (left) with his mother and elder brother

The “Idea of Orientalism”? What is The “Idea of Orientalism”? An idea, produced both in and about the West, that holds principally that the ‘East’ is both ‘other’ and inferior

Said’s Orientalism (1978) examines the processes by which the “Orient” was, and continues to be, constructed in European thinking. Said argues that “Orientalism” is a style of thought based on the ontological and epistemiological distinction between the “Orient” and the “Occident.” But, most broadly, Said presents Orientalism as an institution for dealing with the Orient: dealing with it by describing it, viewing it, teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.

French cartographer Rigobert Bonne, late c18

Within the framework of Orientalism, the Orient is not an inert fact of nature, but a phenomenon constructed by generations of intellectuals, artists, commentators, writers, politicians, and, more importantly, constructed by the naturalizing of a wide range of Orientalist assumptions and stereotypes.

Lawrence of Arabia

Conceptual vocabulary created by, or in the wake of Orientalism An idea, produced both in and about the West, that holds principally that the ‘East’ is both ‘other’ and inferior 1.Orientalist

Sir William Jones (1747-1794) Founded the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784), which aimed “to enhance and further the cause of Oriental Research”

AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY From the beginning in 1842, its aims have been humanistic. The encouragement of basic research in the languages and literatures of Asia has always been central in its tradition. This tradition has come to include such subjects as philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, paleography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology, and the history of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Oriental civilizations, especially of philosophy, religion, folklore and art. The scope of the Society's purpose is not limited by temporal boundaries: All sincere students of man and his works in Asia, at whatever period of history are welcomed to membership. Source: http://www.umich.edu/~aos/

Orientalism describes how the hallowed image of the Orientalist as an austere figure unconcerned with the world and immersed in the mystery of foreign scripts and languages has acquired a dark hue as the murky business of ruling other peoples now forms the essential and enabling background of his or her scholarship.

“William Carey (1761-1834), Orientalist and missionary, in the library at Fort William College, Calcutta, India. His spectacles rest upon an open book. To the right is Carey's chief Hindu scholar or pundit Mritunjaya. He worked with Carey on translating Hindu texts. After Robert Home (1752 - 1834).” Published by the Baptist Missionary Society, London, 4th June 1814.

Conceptual vocabulary of Orientalism Orientalist Essentialism --the assumption that groups, categories or classes of objects have one or several defining features exclusive to all members of that category. For people, essentialism is to be found in claims regarding so-called essential elements of our identity (e.g., race or gender… or culture).

Conceptual vocabulary of Orientalism Orientalist Essentialism Representation Representations can never be completely accurate (e.g., a road atlas, or the tube map). For a representation to be useful, it is necessarily selective and creative. Representations create a new reality. (“representational practices”)

KEY POINT: Orientalism produces knowledge The relationship between the Occident and the Orient is a relationship of power, of domination As such analyses of Orientalist discourse do not hinge on whether or not knowledge is “accurate” or not

ANOTHER KEY POINT: The identification of Orientalist discourse allows its critics to understand how the production of knowledge itself is a marker of the power exerted by the West over the Orient.

Edward Said 1935-2003

And one last term for today’s conceptual vocabulary: POST-COLONIALISM

What is post-colonialism? Not chronological, but a conceptual term A post-colonial perspective looks at phenomena in the world in the wake of colonialism Just as the term ‘post-modern’ denaturalizes the modern, post-colonialism denaturalizes the colonial. In so doing we are able to gain some critical purchase on the colonial In this sense, Orientalism provided a key set of the conceptual tools to create post-colonial criticism

‘Post-colonial’ scholarship (literary criticism) Gayatri Spivak Self and other (“Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988)–No)

Post-colonial studies: Literary criticism Homi Bhabha The hybrid/hybridization; colonialism and its cultures and histories continually intrude onto the present (Nation and Narration (1990), The Location of Culture (1994); “The Ambivalence of the Stereotype”)

How is this of any use to historians?

For the practice of history, Orientalism in particular-- and post-colonial criticism in general-- provided new tools for writing history. This was particularly useful for reading colonial archives ‘against the grain’ in the hope of coaxing the subaltern to speak (Subaltern Studies editorial collective)

Pointed to new, and radical, questions to ask of history itself Pointed to new, and radical, questions to ask of history itself. Is modern history-writing an Orientalist enterprise? Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (2000).

Pointed to new forms for history-writing… wary of totalizing historical narratives

And two final questions to ask yourselves between now and your seminar: Do I really need to worry about all this if I am not interested in the history of far-away places? And/or: I am only interested in a period of history that preceded what Said describes as “Orientalism.” Why should I bother?